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THE  TRUE  STORY 


OF 


THE  BAKONS  OF  THE  SOUTH; 


OR, 


THE  KATIONALE  OF  THE  AMEKICAN  CONFLICT. 


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AUTHOR  OF   "THE  RECORDS  OF  BCBBLETON  PARISH,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


"  All  our  misfortunes  arise  from  a  single  source,  the  resistance  of  the  Southern  Colo 
nies  to  Republican  Government Popular  principles  and  axioms  are  abhorrent  to 

the  inclinations  of  the  Barons  of  the  South."  —  JOH.V  ADAMS  in  1776. 


BOSTON: 
WALKER,    WISE,    AND    COMPANY, 

245  WASHINGTON  STREET. 
1862. 


E 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1862,  by 

WALKER,    WISE,    AXD    COMPANY, 
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C  A  M  B  n  i  D  G  E  : 

WELCH,    BIOELOW,    AND    COMPANY, 
PRIMERS  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY. 


TO 

THE  JUST  MEN  AND  WOMEN  OF  MY  COTJNTEY, 

WHO, 

LOYAL    TO     LIBERTY     IN     ITS    DARKEST     HOUR, 

HAVE    SOUGHT     THE    TRUE     GLORY     OF     THE     REPUBLIC,     BY     VINDI 
CATING    THE    RIGHTS    OF    HUMANITY    IN    THE    PERSONS 
OF     THE     LOWLIEST     IN     THE     LAND  ; 

AND    WHO    SEE, 

BEYOND     THE      CARNIVAL     OF      BATTLE, 
A    RACE    REDEEMED,    AND    A    NATION    RENOVATED, 

K  Inscribe  tftfs  23ssa£, 

WITH    GRATEFUL    REMEMBRANCE    OF   THEIR    SERVICES,   AND 
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E239949 


" '  A  KEGRO  has  a  sotil,  an'  please  your  honor,'  said  the  Corporal 
(doubtingly). 

" '  I  am  not  much  versed,  Corporal,'  quoth  my  Uncle  Toby,  '  in 
things  of  that  kind;  but  I  suppose  God  would  not  leave  him  without 
one  any  more  than  thee  or  me.' 

"  '  It  would  be  putting  one  sadly  over  the  head  of  the  other,'  quoth 
the  Corporal. 

"  '  It  would  so,'  said  my  Uncle  Toby. 

" '  Why,  then,  an'  please  your  honor,  is  a  black  man  to  be  used 
worse  than  a  white  one  ?  ' 

"  '  I  can  give  no  reason,'  said  my  Uncle  Toby. 

" '  Only,'  cried  the  Corporal,  shaking  his  head,  '  because  he  has  no 
one  to  stand  up  for  him.' 

" '  It  is  that  very  thing,  Trim,'  quoth  my  Uncle  Toby,  '  which 
recommends  him  to  protection.'  "  —  STERNE. 

"  We  must  not  allow  negroes  to  be  MEN,  lest  we  ourselves  should  be 
suspected  of  not  being  CHRISTIANS."  —  MONTESQUIEU. 

"  The  man  is  thought  a  knave  or  fool, 

Or  bigot,  plotting  crime, 
Who,  for  the  advancement  of  his  kind, 

Is  wiser  than  his  time. 
For  him  the  hemlock  shall  distil; 

For  him  the  axe  be  bared ; 
For  him  the  gibbet  shall  be  built; 

For  him  the  stake  prepared; 
Him  shall  the  scorn  and  wrath  of  men 

Pursue  with  deadly  aim ; 
And  malice,  envy,  spite,  and  lies 

Shall  desecrate  his  name. 
But  truth  shall  conquer  at  the  last; 

For  round  and  round  we  run, 
And  ever  the  right  comes  uppermost, 

And  ever  is  justice  done." 

MACKAY. 


INTRODUCTION. 

BY  REV.  SAMUEL  J.  MAY. 

OIL  and  water  cannot  be  made  to  unite,  unless  you 
first  destroy  their  distinctive  qualities,  that  is,  make  them 
something  else  than  oil  and  water.  Light  and  darkness 
cannot  come  together  in  the  same  enclosure,  no,  not  on 
the  same  hemisphere,  without  modifying  each  other. 
Much  less  can  liberty  and  slavery  abide  at  peace  in 
the  same  country,  nor,  indeed,  on  the  same  continent. 
They  are,  like  good  and  evil,  Christ  and  Belial,  nat 
ural,  eternal  antagonists,  utterly  irreconcilable,  mutually 
destructive. 

The  founders  of  our  Republic  reluctantly  consented 
that  the  impracticable  experiment  should  be  attempted. 
And  the  disastrous  consequences  of  that  attempt  have 
come  upon  this  generation. 

Could  the  framers  of  our  Constitution  have  foreseen 
what  our  eyes  behold,  they  would  never  have  consented 
to  any  compromises  with  slave-holders,  expressed  or  im 
plied.  Rather  than  permit  our  nation  ever  to  become 
what  it  has  been  for  the  last  thirty  years,  they  would 
i 


VI  INTRODUCTION. 

have  deferred  indefinitely  its  establishment,  if  that  had 
been  the  alternative.  If  this  Union  could  not  have  been 
formed  without  their  agreeing  that  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  should  erelong  be  put  into  the  hands  of  a  slave- 
holding  oligarchy,  to  be  wielded  especially  for  the  main 
tenance  and  extension  of  their  system  of  oppression,  our 
political  fathers  would  have  said,  '  Then  let  it  pass,  —  the 
object  of  our  fondest  hope,  our  longing  desire !  Much  as 
we  have  suffered,  much  as  we  have  sacrificed,  we  had 
rather  abandon  our  great  enterprise,  and  return  even  to 
the  subjection  from  which  we  have  just  fought  our  way 
out,  than  to  impose  a  worse  bondage  upon  others.  Better 
will  it  be,  more  safe,  more  honorable,  to  be  ourselves 
again  the  subjects  of  a  king,  than  to  become  the  tyrant- 
masters  of  any  of  our  fellow-men,  or  the  accomplices  of 
such  despots.'  But  the  wise  and  good  men  of  1787  did 
not  foresee,  nor  apprehend,  the  catastrophe  which  their 
descendants  of  the  second  and  third  generations  would 
witness.  They  did  not  foresee  nor  apprehend,  that  the 
government  they  instituted  with  so  much  care,  in  so  much 
wisdom  (save  only  in  one  covert  point),  would  so  soon 
be  converted  into  a  conspiracy  against  the  natural  and 
inalienable  rights  of  man,  "  a  mere  plot  for  the  extension 
and  perpetuation  of  slavery "  of  the  worst  type ;  and 
that  the  "  Barons  of  the  South,"  whom  they  conciliated 
by  their  concessions,  would  attempt  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union,  would  involve  these  United  States  in  all  the  hor 
rors  of  civil  war,  rather  than  submit  to  those  who  only 


INTRODUCTION.  VU 

insisted  upon  conducting  the  general  government  on  the 
principles  and  in  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution. 

Far  otherwise :  they  confidently  trusted  that  the  love 
of  freedom,  which  had  inspired  the  American  Colonies 
to  attempt  their  deliverance  from  a  foreign  yoke,  and 
had  sustained  them  through  a  long,  unequal  conflict  with 
the  mightiest  power  on  earth,  was  so  rife  everywhere, 
South  as  well  as  North,  that  in  due  time  it  would  expel 
from  every  State  every  vestige  of  oppression. 

In  this  belief  the  friends  of  liberty  were  encouraged 
by  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  all  the  States  north  of  the 
Potomac ;  the  frequency  of  private  manumissions  in  the 
Southern  States ;  and  the  unanimity  with  which  the 
members  of  Congress,  in  1807,  concurred  in  an  Act  to 
suppress  forever  the  African  slave-trade,  and  punish  as 
pirates  all  who  should  thereafter  be  found  engaged  in  it. 
Thenceforward,  for  more  than  a  decade  of  years,  the 
philanthropists  of  the  country,  the  Abolitionists,  rested 
from  their  labors,  in  the  belief  that  a  spirit  was  abroad 
in  the  land  which  would  accomplish  the  desire  of  their 
hearts,  the  deliverance  of  the  enslaved.  It  was  not  until 
1820,  when  the  question  of  the  admission  of  Missouri 
as  a  slave  State,  in  violation  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787, 
agitated  the  country,  that  the  people  of  the  Northern 
States  waked  up  to  notice  the  "  inclinations  of  the  Bar 
ons  of  the  South,"  and  to  mark  the  encroachments  they 
had  quietly  but  persistently  made  during  the  foregoing 
ten  years. 


Viil  INTRODUCTION. 

Since  that  time,  the  strife  between  the  friends  of  free 
dom  and  the  abettors  of  slavery  has  waxed  stronger  and 
hotter,  until  now  our  whole  country  is  involved  in  a  most 
deadly  civil  war,  which  can  never  terminate  until  the 
cause  of  it,  slavery,  is  removed. 

For  more  than  thirty  years  the  Abolitionists  have  been 
endeavoring  to  rouse  the  people  to  exterminate  "  the  evil 
thing"  from  our  midst  by  moral,  ecclesiastical,  and  politi 
cal  instrumentalities ;  urging  them  to  their  duty  by  the 
solemn  admonition  of  the  great  prophet  of  our  Revolu 
tion,  that,  "  if  they  would  not  liberate  the  slaves  by  the 
generous  energies  of  mind  and  heart,  they  would  be  lib 
erated  by  the  awful  processes  of  civil  and  servile  war." 
But  the  counsels  of  the  Abolitionists  have  been  spurned, 
their  sentiments  and  purposes  shamelessly  misrepre 
sented,  their  characters  traduced,  and  their  persons  mal 
treated.  And  lo !  now  our  beloved  country,  favored  of 
Heaven  above  all  others,  is  given  up  to  fratricidal,  parri 
cidal,  it  may  be  suicidal  war. 

That  the  "  Barons  of  the  South  "  and  their  retainers 
have  long  been  preparing  for  this  diabolical  rebellion, 
and  have  intended  to  be  utterly  unscrupulous  as  to  the 
means  they  should  use  to  effect  their  purpose,  is  daily 
becoming  more  patent.  Their  dark  secrets  are  being 
brought  to  light.  Every  day  new  revelations  are  made 
of  their  impious,  infernal  plot.  Evidences  of  their 
malice  long  prepense  are  continually  coming  from  un 
expected  quarters.  Inquiring  eyes  have  discovered 


INTRODUCTION.  IX 

proofs  of  their  guilt  as  black  and  damning  as  that  of 
"the  rebel  angels." 

The  modest  author  of  the  following  book  has  been  im 
pelled  to  come  forth  from  his  loved  retirement,  as  a  wit 
ness  against  them.  It  has  been  our  privilege  to  hear, 
from  the  manuscript,  the  greater  part  of  what  he  now 
offers  to  the  public.  We  have  advised  the  publication  of 
it,  because,  though  much  to  the  same  effect  has  been 
given  in  sundry  speeches  and  newspaper  articles,  we 
have  seen  nothing  so  thorough,  so  radical.  He  has  in 
deed  gone  to  the  root  of  the  matter. 

Everything  in  this  book  is  racy,  evidently  the  result  of 
the  author's  own  investigations ;  the  product  of  his  own 
thought.  Some  parts  of  it  are  wholly  original.  The 
reader  will  find  in  it  a  few  facts  more  startling  than  any 
other  explorer  has  brought  us  from  the  arcana  of  Ameri 
can  despotism.  He  has  shown  us  again,  that  "  the  chil 
dren  of  this  world  have  been  wiser  in  their  day  and  gen 
eration  than  the  children  of  light."  He  has  shown  us 
that  "the  Barons  of  the  South,"  as  the  illustrious  John 
Adams  first  called  them  in  1776,  have,  almost  from  the 
beginning,  hated  democratic  principles  and  purposes. 
They  have  foreseen  and  forefelt  the  utter  incompatibility 
of  a  democratic  government  with  the  permanence  of  their 
"  peculiar  institution,"  —  that  worst  system  of  tyranny,  — 
and  therefore  they  early  determined  to  rule  or  to  ruin 
the  Republic ;  to  change  its  character ;  to  make  it  a  ruth 
less  despotism  under  a  better  name;  or  else  to  break 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

away  from  it,  rend  it  in  twain,  tear  it  in  pieces.  All  this 
is  made  to  appear  on  the  following  pages.  "We  ear 
nestly  commend  them  to  the  attentive  perusal  of  every 
one  who  is  willing  to  know  how  implacable  is  the  tem 
per,  how  impious  the  purpose,  of  the  leaders  of  this 
great  Rebellion. 

SYRACUSE,  January  15,  1862. 


CONTENTS. 


PART    I. 

OUR   TWO    SYSTEMS    OF    SOCIETY. 

PAGE 

I.  NATURE  OF  THE  CONFLICT       .    • 11 

II.  THE  GERM  OF  THE  CONFLICT.  —  THE  BARONS  ESPOUSE 

SLAVERY        .  •     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  17 

III.  STATUS  OF  SLAVERY  IN  THE  REPUBLIC      .        .       .  25 

IV.  THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  BARONS 30 

V.  PRESTIGE  OF  THE   BARONS.  —  OMENS.  —  THE  SHIP  OF 

EMPIRE  LAUNCHED        .        .  . 34 

PART    II. 

s 

OUR    POLITICAL    APOSTASY. 

I.    THE  PROCESS.  —  THE  CAPITAL  INFECTED          .        .  II 

II.    TERRITORIAL  EXTENSION  OF  SLAVERY  ....  45 

HI.    SLAVE  REPRESENTATION 51 

IV.     SLAVERY  CONSTRUING  THE  CONSTITUTION     ...  67 

V.    SLAVERY  IN  THE  SUPREME  COURT      .        .                .  68 

VI.    SLAVERY  SUBDUING  THE  CHURCH           ...        •        .  73 

VII.    APPARENT  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  DESPOTIC  SYSTEM        .  90 

PART    III. 

OUR    POLITICAL    REGENERATION. 

I.    THE  DAWN  OF  REFORM 96 

II.  WHY  THE  REFORM  WAS  RESISTED      ....  101 

III.  THE  VANGUARD  OF  LIBERTY           .       .       »       .        .  104 

IV.  ORGANIZATION  AND  OPPOSITION          .       .        .       .  109 
V.     THE  OPPOSITION  BY  MOBS       .        .        .        .        .        .  114 

VI.  SUBSERVIENCY  OF  THE  NORTH     .        .        .                .  118 
VII.    THE  OPPOSITION  BY  STATES    .                ....  121 


Xll  CONTEKTS. 

VIII.    THE  OPPOSITION  BY  THE  FEDERAL  POWER       .        .  126 
IX.    FINAL,    STRUGGLE,   AND   TRIUMPHANT    ASSERTION   OF 

FREEDOM  IN  THE  NORTH 129 

X.    NEW  POLITICAL   ORGANIZATIONS.  —  THE  REPUBLICAN 

PARTY     . 136 

XL    CONSIDERATIONS     .        .       .        ...       .        .        .  189 

PART    IV. 

THE    REBELLION    OF    THE    BARONS. 

I.    THE  PLOT  OF  AARON  BURR 145 

II.    THE  IMAGE  OF  A  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  —  NULLIFICATION    153 

III.  PECULIAR  SOCIAL  SYSTEM  OF  THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  RE 

BELLION  THE  LOGICAL  RESULT    .....  157 

IV.  THE  RIPENING  OF  THE  TREASON         ....  164 
V»    FINAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PLOT  IN  MR.  BUCHAN 
AN'S  CABINET         ........  167 

VI.    THE  DRAMA  OF  INSURRECTION 171 

VII.    THE  AGONY  OF  COMPROMISE          .....    173 
VIII.    THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS  INAUGURATED   IN   THE 

DISMEMBERED    REPUBLIC         .  .  .  .  .  .177 

IX.    COMPROMISE  ENDS,  AND  THE  NEW  ERA  BEGINS        .        182 

PART    V. 

THE   PROVIDENTIAL    ALTERNATIVE. 

I.    GLOOMY  ASPECT  OF  THE  STRUGGLE       ....    187 
II.    THE  REBELLION  VULNERABLE  THROUGH  SLAVERY   .        189 

III.  IMPRACTICABLE  POLICY  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT.  —  PRO 

TECTING  SLAVERY  AT  THE  EXPENSE  OF  THE  UNION. 
—  DESTROYING  THE  NATION  TO  SAVE  ITS  CONSTITU 
TION  . .  193 

IV.  THE  PROGRAMME  OF  THE  PRESIDENT,  AND  THE  LES 

SON  OF  EVENTS     ........  197 

V.    MUST  THE  NATION  DIE,  THAT  THE  BARONS  MAY  WIELD 

THE  WHIP?    .        .        .        .  ....        .  202 

VI.    THE  WAR  DEGRADED  IN  THE  INTEREST  OF  SLAVERY  204 

VII.     GOD'S  ULTIMATUM 207 

VIII.    A  NEW  POLICY  IMPERATIVE 211 

IX.    PROVIDENTIAL  DOOM  OF  THE  BARONS   ....  220 

X.    THESEUS  AND  THE  MINOTAUR.  —  LESSON  OF  THE  EPOCH  232 


PART    I. 

OUR  TWO   SYSTEMS   OF   SOCIETY, 


"  IT  cannot  be  denied  that  in  a  community  spreading  over  a  large 
extent  of  territory,  and  politically  founded  upon  the  principles  pro 
claimed  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  but  differing  so  widely  in 
the  elements  of  their  social  condition,  that  the  inhabitants  of  one  half 
the  territory  are  wholly  free,  and  those  of  the  other  half  divided  into 
masters  and  slaves,  DEEP  if  not  IRRECONCILABLE  COLLISIONS  OF  IN 
TEREST  must  abound.  The  question  WHETHER  SUCH  A  COMMUNITY 

CAN   EXIST   UNDER  ONE   COMMON   GOVERNMENT,  is   a   Subject   of  prO- 

found  philosophical  speculation  in  theory.  Whether  it  can  continue 
long  to  exist,  is  a  question  to  be  solved  only  by  the  experiment  now 
making  by  the  people  of  this  Union,  under  that  national  compact,  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States."  —JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS,  1833. 

"  The  whole  politics  of  rival  States  consist  in  checking  the  growth 
of  one  another." —  MACHIAVEL. 


"  Hardly  had  the  country  recovered  from  its  external  struggles  and 
internal  troubles,  than  the  most  eminent  and  sagacious  of  the  Ameri 
can  statesmen  became  apprehensive  as  to  the  nature  of  the  disease 
with  which  they  had  inoculated  the  national  being;  and  fears  as  to 
the  dangers  which  might  be  evolved  out  of  the  perpetuation  of  slavery 
were  openly  and  solemnly  expressed.  Gradually  it  became  apparent 
that,  however  highly  the  Slave  States  prized  republican  institutions, 
they  prized  slavery  more,  —  that  slavery,  instead  of  dwindling  away, 
was  establishing  itself  permanently  as  a  commercial  as  weL  as  a  social 
institution,  and  allying  itself  with  political  power, —  that  it  was  creating 
out  of  the  Union  a  '  North'  and  a  '  South,'  —  and  that  the  necessity  for 
its  extension  into  new  territory  would  cause  a  perpetual  and  ever- 
increasing  antagonism  between  them,  with  an  ever-growing  divergence 

of  feeling  and  interest America  has  thus  reached  a  position 

in  which  the  two  sections  are  as  far  asunder  in  opinion  as  they  can 
be ;  they  are,  in  fact,  diametrically  opposed  in  respect  to  the  funda 
mental  ideas  on  which  social  and  political  institutions  are  based."  — 
NORTH  BKITISH  REVIEW,  1861. 


I. 

NATURE   OF  THE  CONFLICT. 

WE  trust  that  it  has  become  obvious,  by  this 
hue,  to  all  the  spectators  as  well  as  participants 
of  the  pending  struggle,  that  the  American  Civil 
War  is  not  a  mere  flash  of  sectional  petulance, 
wantonly  provoked  by  unnecessary  aggressions, 
—  the  work  of  a  few  fanatical  Abolitionists,  on 
one  side,  and  of  desperate  demagogues,  on  the 
other,  —  but  a  war  of  Principles,  —  a  war  of  his 
torical  forces,  lying  deep  as  the  foundations  of 
human  nature,  and  working  wide  as  the  scope 
of  human  action. 

This  being  the  real  fact,  we  trust  it  is  fast  be 
coming  equally  obvious  that  there  can  be  no 
"  compromise  "  between  the  hostile  powers,  and 
no  permanent,  immediate,  or  desirable  peace ;  — 
that,  in  a  word,  there  can  be  no  settlement  of  the 
great  quesion  at  issue,  which  would  be  either 
honorable  or  profitable,  except  on  the  complete 
subjugation  of  the  criminal  party,  and  the  com 
plete  extinction  of  that  infamous  system  which 
—  never  compatible  with  political  purity  —  is  na 
longer  compatible  with  the  liberties  or  safety  of 
the  land. 


12    .  OUR   TWO   SYSTEMS    OF   SOCIETY. 


It  'has  been  well  'observed,  that  "The  slave 
question  in  America  is  only  one  phase  of  the 
more  comprehensive  question  of  human  freedom 
that  now  begins  to  agitate  the  civilized  world, 
and  that  presents  the  grand  problem  of  the  pres 
ent  age.  Such  a  question  must  be  met,  must 
be  discussed,  must  be  decided,  and  decided  cor 
rectly,  before  the  nations  of  the  earth  can  be  en 
franchised,  and  before  this  anomalous  republic 
can  either  secure  her  own  liberties  or  find  per 
manent  repose.  In  a  nation  whose  declaration 
of  self-evident  and  inalienable  human  rights  has 
been  hailed  as  the  watchword  for  a  universal 
struggle  against  despotic  governments,  —  a  nation 
whose  support  of  human  chattelhood  has  armed 
the  world's  despots  with  their  most  plausible  pleas 
against  republican  institutions,  it  is  in  vain  to 
expect  that  the  discussion  of  such  incongruities 
can  be  smothered,  or  the  adjustment  of  them 
much  longer  postponed."  * 

All  great  nations  have  been  called  to  face  great 
perils,  to  exhibit  great  virtues,  and  to  achieve 
great  victories.  The  proof  and  seal  of  their  great 
ness  has  been,  that  they  have  been  strong  in  the 
day  of  calamity,  generous  and  bold  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  the  hour,  and  have  woven  the 
scarlet  threads  of  war  into  robes  of  immortal 
honor.  What  other  people  have  been  called 

*  William  Goodell. 


NATURE   OF   THE    CONFLICT.  13 

to  face,  to  endure,  and  to  suffer,  in  the  forma 
tion  of  a  strong  nationality,  may  reasonably  be 
exacted  of  us  ;  and  we  are  authorized  in  believ 
ing  that  the  RESULT  which  God  has  in  view  will 
justify  and  reward  the  sacrifices  involved  in  the 
contest. 

What  is  it,  for  instance,  that  has  formed  the 
sterling  qualities  of  the  English  nation, — the 
vigor,  persistence,  patience,  enterprise,  and  heroism 
that  distinguish  the  national  character?  These 
qualities  are  the  product  of  the  roughest  dis 
cipline  that  ever  spun  the  fibres  of  political  great 
ness.  They  are  the  result  of  a  providential  col 
lision  and  blending  of  races,  under  the  impetus 
of  conquest,  under  the  hammer  of  affliction.  The 
Briton  and  the  Dane,  the  Saxon  and  the  Norman, 
were  thrust  into  the  furnace  in  the  historic  pro 
cess,  and  welded  into  an  empire  in  the  white 
heat  of  battle.  War  was  the  instrument,  blood 
cemented  the  rising  edifice,  but  the  English  mon 
archy  is  the  solid  result. 

There  are  respects  in  which  the  present  war 
will  redound  to  the  greatness  of  this  country,  aside 
from  the  attainment  of  the  special  objects  for 
which  it  is  waged.  It  will  bring  out  the  latent 
energy  of  our  people  ;  it  will  prove  their  loyalty, 
their  fertility  of  resource,  their  self-denial ;  it  will 
school  them  in  patience  and  fortitude,  and  show 
the  world  what  ardent  patriotism  has  flowed  in 
our  calmer  blood,  and  what  power  has  slumbered, 
unseen,  through  the  peaceful  summer  of  our  his- 


14  OUR   TWO   SYSTEMS   OF  SOCIETY. 

tory.  It  will  teach  us  all  that  .there  are  better 
things  to  live  for  than  riches  and  pride,  or  houses 
and  lands,  and  permit  us  to  lavish  on  the  pre 
cious  institutions  and  imperilled  interests  of  our 
country  the  money  and  labor  that  would  have 
been  wasted  on  vanity  and  ambition.  It  will  en 
able  millions  of  us,  who  might  have  lived  common 
lives,  —  who  might  have  sauntered  through  the 
world  aimless  and  imbecile,  —  who  might  have 
fatted  and  died  like  the  cattle,  but  for  this  great 
peril  of  liberty  and  the  salutary  spur  of  a  stern 
necessity,  —  it  will  enable  these  to  enroll  them 
selves  among  the  benefactors  of  mankind,  and 
to  file  into  the  illustrious  ranks  of  patriots  and 
heroes.  It  will  transfigure  our  tame  and  prosaic 
life  into  the  poetic  colors  that  all  memorable  ages 
wear,  and  admit  us  to  the  solemn  fellowship  of 
the  great  dead,  who  have  made  the  earth  a  battle 
ground  for  righteousness,  and  twisted  its  harvests 
of  thorns  into  chaplets  for  heaven. 

It  is  these  experiences  that  ennoble  a  nation. 
They  break  the  enervating  enchantment  of  luxuri 
ous  living,  and  fire  and  purify  the  land  with  moral 
enthusiasm.  Whatever  may  be  the  evils  involved 
in  such  a  conflict,  —  and  they  are  neither  few  nor 
trivial,  —  the  eventual  blessings  transcend  them. 
Men  cease  to  be  triflers  and  hypocrites  before  the 
apparition  of  a  great  catastrophe.  The  good  and 
evil  qualities  of  men  declare  themselves  in  a  vital 
social  crisis.  Every  man,  detached  from  his  con 
ventional  anchorage,  seeks  his  affinity.  The  moral 


NATURE   OF   THE   CONFLICT.  15 

nature  cornes  uppermost,  and  life  assumes  a 
higher  significance  as  sensuous  superfluities  be 
come  stripped  away  and  we  hear  the  voice  of 
God  in  thunders  that  rock  the  temple  of  Liberty 
to  its  base. 

It  is  our  fortune  to  live  in  what  will  doubtless 
be  esteemed,  in  after  times,  the  most  memorable 
epoch  of  our  country's  history.  We  have  not  been 
called  into  existence  to  share  a  torpid  land,  or  to 
fulfil  vacant  years.  God  bids  us  live  in  the  central 
current  of  his  providence,  and  permits  us  to  be 
servants  and  witnesses  of  his  unfolding  kingdom. 
He  plants  us  on  the  ramparts  of  liberty,  to  guard 
the  fairest  heritage  of  humanity.  He  stations  us 
at  the  wheel  of  the  great  constitutional  ship,  to 
pilot  her  through  the  stormy  straits.  He  calls 
us  to  bear  the  battle's  brunt,  and  take  a  trophy 
worthy  of  the  momentous  day. 

Dwelling  here  on  this  latest  scene  of  historic 
interest,  amid  the  springs  of  ever-gushing  events, 
how  deep  and  full  is  the  life  of  every  loyal  man ! 
In  the  circuit  of  a  single  year  —  while  the  trumpet 
of  battle  is  sounding,  and  we  are  bringing  our 
holiest  sacrifices  to  the  altar  of  our  country  — 
we  imbibe  a  more  vital  existence  than  we  had 
ever  tasted.  We  taste  the  emotions  that  swept 
through  the  souls  of  our  fathers  when  they  pledged 
life,  fortune,  and  sacred  honor  to  the  cause  of 
Freedom ;  the  emotions  that  exalted  LUTHER  be 
fore  his  regal  judges,  that  guided  MILTON'S  pen 
to  coin  undying  words,  that  followed  SIDNEY  to 


16  OUR   TWO   SYSTEMS   OF   SOCIETY. 

the  block ;  and,  like  them,  we  are  permitted  to 
feel  that  this  world  has  no  joys  which  we  cannot 
resign  for  the  sake  of  a  loyal  conscience,  an  in 
trepid  will,  and  a  mind  superior  to  fate.  Like 
the  noblest  men  who  have  dignified  past  ages, 
some  of  us  are  now  permitted  to  realize  how  God 
makes  the  world  a  crucible  for  the  refining  of 
nations  ;  —  how  he  rescues  the  precious  stones 
and  the  gold  of  every  civilization,  while  he  burns 
the  dross  in  renovating  fire  ;  how  he  preserves 
every  spiritual  treasure,  but  shakes  down  our 
idols  with  remorseless  austerity ;  and  how,  with 
unerring  skill,  he  prunes  our  luxurious  life,  and 
saves  only  the  branches  that  bear  fruit  for  God 
and  man. 


II. 


THE  GERM  OF  THE  CONFLICT.  — THE  BARONS  ESPOUSE 
SLAVERY. 


THE  germ  of  the  momentous  contest  in  which 
the  nation  is  now  engaged  is  to  be  sought  as  far 
back  as  the  beginning  of  our  history.  When,  in 
*the  eventful  year  1620,  the  ocean  bore  on  its 
turbulent  bosom  a  band  of  Puritans  to  Massa 
chusetts  and  a  cargo  of  negroes  to  Virginia,  it 
deposited  on  our  soil  two  hostile  elements,  —  the 
seeds  of  two  rival  social  systems,  —  the  story  of 
whose  growth  and  expansion,  of  whose  compe 
titions  and  aggressions,  forms  the  distinctive  his 
tory  of  the  Republic,  down  to  this  day. 

The  May-Flower  brought  the  germ  of  a  civiliza 
tion  in  which  thought  is  free,  —  learning  diffused 
like  the  light,  —  law  made  the  equal  bulwark  of 
every  individual,  —  labor  compensated  and  hon 
ored  ;  —  a  civilization  in  which  the  rights  of  every 
man  are  recognized,  the  prerogatives  of  every 
class  and  sect  protected,  and  the  largest  develop 
ment  of  the  whole  body  of  society  encouraged. 

The  Dutch  ship  brought,  with  its  menial  cargo, 
the  germ  of  a  social  order  radically  different, — 
a  social  order  that  regards  the  State  as  existing 


18  OUK   TWO   SYSTEMS   OF  SOCIETY. 

solely  for  the  benefit  of  a  dominant  class,  which 
it  arms  accordingly  with  absolute  and  irresponsible 
power,  and  to  which  the  other  members  of  the  com 
munity  are  related  as  cattle  are  related  to  their 
owners,  —  a  social  order  in  which  justice  is  ig 
nored,  learning  Restricted,  genius  and  enterprise 
discouraged,  labor  extorted  and  dishonored,  the 
dictates  of  religion  contemned,  all  improvement 
vetoed,  and  the  organic  forces  that  are  intended 
to  develop  and  magnify  a  state  stricken  with 
deadly  paralysis. 

It  should  have  been  morally  self-evident,  in  the 
beginning,  that  these  two  social  orders  could  never , 
mature  —  within  the  same  national  domain  7—  with 
out  coming  into  collision,  shocking  the  govern 
ment  to  its  centre,  and  involving  the  destruction 
of  at  least  one  of  the  antagonistic  interests.  The 
event  was  inevitable  as  the  working  of  instincts 
in  the  blood,  its  fulfilment  only  a  question  of 
time. 

The  antithesis  has  a  yet  deeper  root.  The 
Puritans  who  came  to  Massachusetts  left  a  sturdy 
brotherhood  in  England,  who  overturned  the  throne 
of  Charles  I.,  reared  a  Commonwealth  out  of  the 
chaos  of  civil  war,  and  engendered  among  the 
English  people  a  republican  spirit,  that  allowed 
the  kingdom  no  rest  till  bounds  were  set  to  the 
royal  prerogative,  and  the  rights  of  the  subject 
fortified  by  law.  The  Cavaliers  who  settled  in 
Virginia  —  assuming  the  charge  of  that  peculiar 
"  property "  brought  over  by  the  Dutch  slave- 


THE   GERM   OF   THE   CONFLICT.  19 

trader  —  were  of  that  effeminate  and  supercilious 
nobility  *  that  drew  the  lance  in  behalf  of  the 
oppressive  Stuarts ;  that  poured  out  treasure  and 
life  so  profusely  in  defence  of  a  family  whose 
crafty  malice  was  equalled  only  by  its  scandalous 
vices  and  impotent  imbecility ;  and  that  resisted 
with  such  virulent  hostility  the  spirit  of  political 
reform  marshalled  under  Cromwell  and  William 
of  Orange. 

Thus  the  two  parties  —  the  representatives  of 
liberty  and  oppression  —  whose  struggles  comprise 
the  glory  and  shame  of  English  history  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  delegated  their  quarrel  to 
the  new  empire  then  rising  in  the  West ;  and 
here,  accordingly,  under  modified  conditions,  we 
are  fighting  to  reach  an  issue  far  grander  and 
more  momentous  than  that  which  banished  James 
II.  and  gave  a  new  dynasty  to  England. 

*  Respecting  the  first  emigrants  to  Virginia,  I  find  the  following 
statements,  copied  from  Willson's  American  History  :  —  "Of  the  one 
hundred  and  five  persons  on  the  list  of  emigrants  destined  to  remain, 
there  were  no  men  with  families,  —  there  were  but  twelve  laborers, 
and  very  few  mechanics.  The  rest  were  composed  of  gentlemen  of 
fortune,  and  of  persons  of  no  occupation,  —  mostly  of  idle  and  disso 
lute  habits,  —  who  had  been  tempted  to  join  the  expedition  through 
curiosity  or  the  hope  of  gain;  a  company  but  poorly  calculated  to 
plant  an  agricultural  state  in  a  wilderness."  (p.  162.)  "New  emi 
grants  arrived  in  1609,  most  of  whom  were  profligate  and  disorderly 
persons,  who  had  been  sent  off  to  escape  a  worse  destiny  at  home." 
(p.  166.)  At  the  time  of  the  first  importation  of  negroes  (1620),  "  there 
were  very  few  women  in  the  Colony."  "  Ninety  women  of  reputable 
character"  were  soon  after  sent  over,  and  the  colonists  purchased 
them  for  wives,  "  the  price  of  a  wife  rising  from  one  hundred  and 
twenty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  tobacco."  (p.  170.)  Is  this 
the  origin,  after  all,  of  the  celebrated  First  Families  of  Virginia? 


20  OUR   TWO   SYSTEMS   OF   SOCIETY. 

The  two  antagonistic  systems  found  congenial 
soil  in  the  places  where  they  were  planted.  Free 
dom  was  cherished  in  Massachusetts,  slavery  was 
fostered  in  Virginia.  There  was  a  momentary 
effort,  it  is  true,  to  establish  an  aristocracy  in  the 
Puritan  Colony;  but  it  was  found  hostile  to  the 
temper  of  the  province.  It  is  true,  also,  that 
slavery  obtained  a  temporary  footing  in  this  Col 
ony,  as  in  all  the  other  Colonies,  and  that  the 
slave-trade  formed  an  important  part  of  the  early 
commerce  of  New  England.  But  it  was  impos 
sible  that  the  system  should  long  survive,  in  oppo 
sition  to  that  intense  love  of  freedom  which  was 
the  salt  of  the  otherwise  unsavory  character  of 
the  Puritans,  and  in  the  face  of  the  institutions 
they  founded  and  matured.  To  Massachusetts 
belongs  the  honor  of  having  been  the  first  of  the 
States  to  abolish  negro  slavery  by  a  solemn  judi 
cial  decision.  In  Virginia,  the  baleful  plant  of 
despotism  became  rooted  deeper  in  her  growing 
polity  in  the  process  of  time.  In  the  first  in 
stance,  negroes  were  enslaved  on  the  ground  that 
they  were  heathen ;  but  as  they  began  to  be  con 
verted  and  Christianized,  it  became  necessary  to 
base  their  servitude  on  their  alleged  inferiority  as 
a  race.  Having  thus  subverted  the  liberties  of 
the  negroes,  the  Virginia  planters  proceeded  to 
curtail  the  rights  of  the  other  race,  and  poor 
white  men  were  disfranchised  by  an  act  of  the 
Provincial  Assembly.* 

*  Hildreth's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  I.  pp.  523,  624. 


THE   GERM   OF  THE   CONFLICT.  21 

The  political  tendencies  of  the  two  Colonies 
were  consistent  with  their  antecedents.  On  the 
breaking  out  of  the  English  civil  war,  Massachu 
setts  indicated  her  sympathies  by  dropping  the 
oath  of  allegiance  and  furling  for  a  while  the 
red  cross  of  England,  while  Virginia,  with  Mary 
land,  adhered  to  the  king,  and  piously  cursed 
the  Roundheads  who  were  prevailing  against 
him.* 

The  same  distinction  is  observable  with  respect 
to  social  improvement.  As  early  as  1649,  the 
freemen  of  Massachusetts  —  "  in  order  that  learn 
ing  may  not  be  buried  in  the  grave  of  our  fa 
thers" —  enacted  that  every  township  should 
maintain  a  school  for  reading  and  writing,  and 
every  town  of  a  hundred  householders  a  grammar 
school,  with  a  teacher  qualified  "  to  fit  youths  for 
the  University."  This  school  law  was  adopted  by 
the  sister  Colonies  of  New  England,  —  that  of 
Rhode  Island  alone  excepted.f  But  in  Virginia, 
as  late  as  1671,  Governor  Berkeley  said,  —  in  a 
Report  made  to  the  Privy  Council,  —  "I  thank 
God  there  are  no  free  schools  nor  printing,  and  I 
hope  we  shall  not  have  these  hundred  years ;  for 
learning  has  brought  disobedience  and  heresy 
and  sects  into  the  world,  and  printing  has  di 
vulged  them,  and  libels  against  the  best  govern 
ment:  God  keep  us  from  both!"$ 

*  Hildreth's  History,  Vol.  I.  pp.  285,  339. 
t  Ibid.,  pp.  370,  371. 
J  Ibid.,  p.  526. 


22  OUR  TWO   SYSTEMS   OF  SOCIETY. 

The  extreme  pertinacity  with  which  the  South 
ern  Colonies  adhered  to  the  slave  system  is  well 
illustrated  in  the  early  history  of  Georgia.  Gen 
eral  James  Oglethorpe  —  a  member  of  the  British 
Parliament,  and  a  man  whose  enlightened  views 
and  humane  policy  render  him  worthy  of  an  hon 
orable  remembrance  —  "  conceived  the  idea  of 
opening  for  the  poor  of  his  own  country,  and  for 
the  persecuted  Protestants  of  all  nations,  an  asy 
lum  in  America."  In  1733,  having  obtained  a 
grant  from  the  king,  he  landed  at  Savannah  with 
one  hundred  and  twenty  immigrants,  and  com 
menced  a  settlement.  In  this  infant  society, 
slavery  was  strictly  prohibited,  and  pronounced, 
"  not  only  immoral,  but  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
England." 

But,  unfortunately  for  this  attempt  to  plant  a 
free  state,  most  of  the  first  emigrants  were  not 
accustomed  to  labor.  "  The  Colony  did  not  pros 
per,"  and  the  colonists  began  to  complain  that 
they  were  prohibited  the  use  of  slave  labor. 
"  The  regulations  of  the  trustees  began  to  be 
evaded,  and  the  laws  against  slavery  were  not 
rigidly  enforced.  At  first,  slaves  from  South  Caro 
lina  were  hired  for  short  periods ;  then  for  a  hun 
dred  years,  or  during  life  ;  and  a  sum  equal  to  the 
value  of  the  negro  paid  in  advance."  In  this 
way  the  insidious  system  rooted  itself  in  the  new 
State ;  slave-traders  sailed  boldly  for  Africa  from 
the  port  of  Savannah ;  the  trustees,  baffled  in 
their  humane  endeavor,  resigned  their  charter ; 


THE   BARONS  ESPOUSE   SLAVERY.  23 

and  Georgia  obeyed  the  fatal  gravitation  that 
has  carried  her  sister  States  into  the  slough  of 
slavery.* 

General  Oglethorpe  returned  to  England  in 
1743,  where  he  distinguished  himself  by  writing 
against  slavery  and  the  impressment  of  seamen. 
In  a  letter  to  his  friend  Granville  Sharp  he  al 
ludes  to  his  former  connection  with  the  Colony 
of  Georgia  :  "  My  friends  and  I  settled  the  Colony 
of  Georgia,  and  by  charter  were  established  trus 
tees,  to  make  laws,  <fec.  We  determined  not  to 
suffer  slavery  there.  But  the  slave-merchants 
and  their  adherents  occasioned  us  not  only  much 
trouble,  but  at  last  got  the  then  government  to 
favor  them.  We  would  not  suffer  slavery  (which 
is  against  the  Gospel  as  well  as  the  fundamental 
law  of  England)  to  be  authorized  under  our  au 
thority  ;  we  refused,  as  trustees,  to  make  a  law 
permitting  such  a  horrid  crime.  The  govern 
ment,  finding  the  trustees  firmly  resolved  not  to 
concur  with  what  they  believed  unjust,  took  away 
the  charter,  by  which  no  law  could  be  passed  with 
out  our  consent."  f 

We  have  heard  it  argued  that  the  system  of 
slavery  at  the  South  was  forced  upon  a  reluctant 
people  in  the  beginning  ;  but  facts,  we  apprehend, 
will  scarcely  warrant  the  plea.  The  whole  system 
of  colonial  slavery  was  illegal  under  the  law  of 
England  ;  and,  though  it  was  fostered  in  some 

*  Willson's  Am.  Hist.,  pp.  262,  265,  266. 
t  Stuart's  Memoir  of  Sharp. 


24  OUR  TWO  SYSTEMS   OF  SOCIETY. 

instances  by  government,  it  appears  that  nothing 
stronger  than  the  cupidity  of  traders,  the  procliv 
ity  to  idleness,  and  the  pride  of  caste  among  the 
colonists,  gave  it  footing  on  our  shores.  In  the 
North,  the  more  enterprising  habits  and  more 
solid  moral  qualities  of  the  people,  —  uniting  with 
a  more  stimulating  and  rigorous  climate,  —  pre 
vented  slavery  from  striking  its  roots  deeply  into 
our  social  system.  But  at  the  South,  the  predi 
lections  of  the  early  immigrants  led  them  to  wel 
come  slave  labor,  and  their  descendants  —  influ 
enced  by  temper  and  by  custom  —  came  to  esteem 
it  indispensable  to  their  station,  their  passions,  and 
their  existence. 

Thus  long  before  the  Revolution  two  different 
orders  of  society  were  in  the  process  of  develop 
ment  in  America :  one  essentially  Christian  and 
republican,  —  recognizing  the  rights  and  destiny 
of  human  nature ;  the  other  essentially  Pagan 
and  despotic,  —  ruthlessly  trampling  on  the  pre 
rogatives  of  man. 


III. 


STATUS  OF  SLAVERY  IN  THE  REPUBLIC. 

THE  discussions  that  brought  on  the  Revolution, 
and  the  struggles  and  genius  by  which  it  was  sus 
tained,  contributed  to  raise  the  republican  system 
into  an  ascendant  position,  and  to  depress  its 
rival  in  a  corresponding  degree.*  "  It  was  by 
no  accidental  coincidence  that  the  period  of  the 
Revolution  was  the  period  of  a  more  general  and 
deep-seated  opposition  to  slavery  than  had  been 
before  visible,  or  than  has  been  witnessed  since. 
The  religious  sentiment  against  slavery,  as  a  vio- 

*  In  the  original  draft  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  made  by 
Mr.  Jefferson,  the  following  charge  is  preferred  against  the  king  of 
Great  Britain :  — 

"  He  has  waged  cruel  war  against  human  nature  itself,  violating  its 
most  sacred  rights  of  life  and  liberty,  in  the  persons  of  a  distant  people 
who  never  offended  him.  captivating  and  carrying  them  into  slavery 
in  another  hemisphere,  or  to  incur  miserable  death  in  their  transporta 
tion  thither.  This  piratical  warfare,  the  opprobrium  of  infidel  powers, 
is  the  warfare  of  the  Christian  king  of  Great  Britain.  Determined  to 
keep  a  market  where  men  should  be  bought  and  sold,  he  has  at  length 
prostituted  his  negative  for  suppressing  any  legislative  attempt  to  pro 
hibit  and  restrain  this  execrable  commerce." 

This  paragraph,  being  objected  to  by  the  delegation  from  Georgia, 
was  expunged  from  the  document.  It  gives  a  good  indication  of  the 
public  sentiment  of  the  period  touching  the  turpitude  of  slave-holding 
and  slave-trading. 

2 


26  OUR  TWO  SYSTEMS   OF   SOCIETY. 

lation  of  Heaven-established  rights,  a  sentiment 
that  had  been  rising  for  some  time  previous,  and 
that  was  now  beginning  to  reach  the  point  of  dis- 
fellowship  with  slave-holders,  was  a  sentiment  that 
naturally  assimilated  itself  with  the  rising  oppo 
sition  to  the  British  government  for  its  invasions 
of  the  same  sacred  rights,  and  that  as  naturally 
sought  the  same  remedy  ;  to  wit,  the  separation 
of  freedom  from  the  embraces  of  despotic  power. 
It  is  equally  evident  that  the  rising  opposi 
tion  of  the  community  in  general  to  the  despotic 
assumptions  of  the  British  government,  so  far 
as  it  had  anything  in  it  like  a  manly  regard  to 
free  principles  for  its  basis,  compelled  that  com 
munity  to  look  at  the  more  grievous  wrongs  of 
the  slaves,  and  created  an  earnest  sympathy  in 
their  favor.  A  decent  regard  to  self-consistency, 
in  that  unsophisticated  and  earnest  age,  could 
scarcely  fail  to  produce  some  such  eifects.  The 
only  just  ground  for  regret  or  astonishment  is 
that  the  spirit  of  freedom,  then  seeming  to  be  in 
the  ascendant,  did  not  secure  and  maintain  a  more 
complete  and  permanent  triumph.  It  is  instruc 
tive  to  notice  how  the  spirit  of  republican  liberty 
and  independence,  in  the  different  Colonies,  was 
found  most  predominant  and  most  efficient  pre 
cisely  where  there  were  fewest  slaves,  and  where 
the  spirit  of  opposition  to  slavery  was  likewise 
most  efficient  and  most  predominant;  while  the 
regions  most  deeply  involved  in  the  sin  of  slave- 
holding,  and  least  accessible  to  the  principles  of 


STATUS  OF  SLAVERY  IN  THE  REPUBLIC.     27 

emancipation,  were  precisely  the  same  regions  in 
which  the  apologists  and  partisans  of  British  usur 
pation  were  most  numerous  and  influential,  —  the 
regions  in  which  the  spirit  of  opposition  to  that 
usurpation  was  to  the  smallest  extent  and  with 
the  greatest  difficulty  roused.  The  South  was  over 
run  with  Tories,  while  New  England  was  united  in 
favor  of  independence,  almost  to  a  man.  Particu 
lar  localities  at  the  North  might  be  mentioned, 
where  the  prevalence  of  slave-holding  and  slave- 
trading  was  connected  with  a  corresponding  sym 
pathy  with  despotic  government."  * 

It  is  worthy  of  everlasting  remembrance,  that 
almost  every  patriot  who  labored  conspicuously  or 
efficiently  in  laying  the  foundation  of  the  Union 
was  hostile  to  slavery,  realized  that  it  was  an 
incongruous  element  in  the  republic,  and  de 
sired  to  see  it  extirpated  from  the  soil  of  the 
nation.  Still  the  despotic  system  was  not  awed 
into  absolute  submission.  It  was  weakened,  but 
not  subdued.  The  finger  of  destiny  seemed  clear 
ly  to  indicate  its  doom ;  but  it  survived,  a  pen 
sioner  on  the  patience  of  the  hour.  It  had  a 
few  representatives  in  the  Constitutional  Conven 
tion,  who  vainly  sought  to  obtain  an  open  recog 
nition  of  its  piratical  interests  under  the  'federal 
law. 

To  the  undying  glory  of  the  framers  of  that 
instrument  be  it  said,  no  such  recognition  was 
obtained.  In  clear,  unequivocal  language,  the 

*  Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery,  pp.  69-71. 


28  OUR   TWO   SYSTEMS   OF  SOCIETY. 

OBJECT  of  the  Constitution  is  declared  to  be  "  to 
form  a  more  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  in 
sure  domestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common 
defence,  promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  pos 
terity." 

Here  is  the  amplest  possible  recognition  of  the 
interests  of  REPUBLICAN  SOCIETY  ;  but  no  recog 
nition  whatever  of  the  interests  of  DESPOTIC  SO 
CIETY.  Ifit  was  thfi  rpfl-1  ^hjflrti  qJLthe  Constitu- 
tion  to  "  form  a  more  perfect  UNiONj*  it  could 
neveF  have  contemplated  the  perpetuity  of  two 
systems  radically  antagonistic  in  their  principles 
and  tendencies.  If  it  was  the  real  object  of  the 
Constitution  "  to  establish  JUSTICE,"  it  could  not 
have  been  intended  to  protect  an  institution  that 
perpetrates  wholesale  and  unmitigated  injustice. 
And  if  it  was  the  real  object  of  the  Constitution 
"  to  promote  the  GENERAL  WELFARE,  and  secure 
the  blessings  of  LIBERTY,"  it  could  never  have 
been  designed  to  indorse  any  policy  that  puts 
the  welfare  of  an  entire  nation  in  jeopardy  for 
the  sake  of  fostering  the  interest  of  a  class,  or 
to  sanction  a  system  that  reduces  one  sixth  of 
our  population  to  perpetual  servitude. 

If  we  grant  that  the  framers  of  this  great  char 
ter  knew  their  own  intentions,  and  honestly  meant 
what  their  words  clearly  express,  we  cannot  doubt 
that  the  Constitution  on  which  the  republic  is 
based  was  drafted  and  adopted  as  the  charter 
of  free  society,  in  absolute  opposition  to  every 
interest  of  despotism. 


STATUS  OF  SLAVERY  IN  THE  REPUBLIC.     29 

The  nation  having  been  thus  consecrated  to 
republican  society  by  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land,  all  the  territory  then  at  the  disposal  of 
the  Republic  was  likewise  dedicated  to  freedom.* 
Express  provision  had  also  been  made  in  the  Con 
stitution  for  putting  a  period  to  the  slave-trade ; 
and  the  time  was  fast  approaching  when  that 
traffic  —  stigmatized  as  piracy  —  would  lie  under 
the  ban  of  the  nation. 

*  Hildreth's  History,  Vol.  HI.  pp.  527,  528. 


IV. 


THE  PROSPECTS   OF  THE  BARONS. 

So  far  all  was  auspicious.  The  government  of 
the  Union  was  enthroned  in  the  unqualified  in 
terest  of  freedom  ;  its  antecedents,  its  principles, 
its  instincts,  were  all  hostile  to  despotic  society.* 
But  the  government  of  the  Union  —  competent 
to  reflect  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  and  to 
embody  the  policy  of  the  nation,  —  had  no  do 
minion  over  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  States. 
And  in  all  the  States  but  Massachusetts  slavery 
actually  existed  at  the  time  the  government  went 
into  operation,  although  provision  had  been  made 
for  eventual  emancipation  in  New  Hampshire, 
Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  and  Pennsylvania,  and 
the  legal  restrictions  upon  emancipation  had  been 
removed  in  Virginia  and  in  Maryland. f 

But  the  Federal  Constitution  —  moulded  in  the 
glow  of  that  ardent  devotion  to  liberty  which 
marked  the  Revolutionary  age,  and  embodying  the 

*  See  a  very  able  argument  for  the  anti-slavery  construction  of  the 
Constitution,  by  Rev.  Samuel  J.  May,  in  the  Quarterly  Anti-Slavery 
Magazine,  Vol.  II.  Parts  I.  and  II.  of  this  Essay  were  written  before 
I  met  with  Mr.  May's  paper.  It  gratifies  me  to  find  my  own  views 
sustained  by  so  admirable  an  argument  as  his. 

t  Hildreth's  History,  Vol.  III.  pp.  391,  392. 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  BARONS.       31 

convictions  of  men  of  the  widest  intelligence  and 
most  genuine  philanthropy  —  was  really  far  in 
advance  of  the  mass  of  the  nation.  Like  Chris 
tianity  in  the  Church,  it  was  a  Gospel  of  Liberty 
in  the  Republic,  far  above  the  practical  virtue 
of  the  people  by  whom  it  had  been  accepted. 
While  they  might  honor  it  with  verbal  praise, — 
as  men  of  the  world  honor  the  golden  rule,  as 
hypocrites  honor  sanctity,  —  there  was  every  prob 
ability  that  they  would  violate  its  principles  in 
their  practical  action.  And,  as  Christianity  has 
been  degraded  to  conform  to  the  debasement  of 
human  nature,  so  it  might  have  been  expected 
that  this  charter  of  absolute  freedom  would  be 
come  perverted,  under  the  interpretation  of  an 
inferior  order  of  men,  to  meet  the  exigencies  of 
a  depreciated  political  morality. 

It  was  only  requisite  that  an  insidious  hostile 
interest  should  be  tolerated  in  some  of  the  States ; 
allowed  to  work  upon  public  opinion  through  the 
cupidity,  the  pride,  the  lust  and  ambition  of 
men ;  and  permitted  to  creep,  through  these  base 
avenues,  into  the  halls  of  national  legislation,  to 
effect  a  virtual  revolution  in  the  character  and 
policy  of  the  government,  —  to  metamorphose  it 
into  a  machinery  of  despotism ;  and  even  to 
achieve,  in  process  of  time,  if  not  checked  by 
a  revival  of  popular  virtue,  an  absolute  change 
in  its  organic  law. 

That  hostile  interest,  in  the  person  of  slavery, 
still  had  its  roots  or  ligaments  in  all  quarters 


32  OUR   TWO   SYSTEMS   OF   SOCIETY. 

of  the  Republic ;  and  it  only  required  that  the 
enthusiasm  for  liberty  which  the  architects  of  our 
political  temple  had  felt  and  inspired  should  sub 
side  in  the  prosaic  routine  of  prosperous  days, 
to  see  the  instincts  of  slavery  quickened  wher 
ever  they  still  survived.  Even  in  the  States  where 
it  had  been  abolished  by  statute,  many  of  the 
people  gave  it  up  with  reluctance,  and  some  re 
mained  ever  after  tainted  by  its  evil  spirit.  These 
persons  from  that  day  to  this  —  alien  to  the  genius 
of  the  Republic,  and  wholly  subservient  to  its 
despotic  ANTAGONIST  —  have  been  the  most  effi 
cient  servants  of  the  slave  power,  the  most  supple 
apologists  for  the  enormities  of  slave-holding,  the 
most  plausible  advocates  of  the  plots  of  the  South 
ern  oligarchy,  and  the  most  pernicious  enemies 
of  republican  society 

Under  the  influence  of  the  Revolutionary  spirit, 
a  strong  anti-slavery  sentiment  was  awakened  in 
Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Virginia  ;*  but  it  yielded 
to  the  force  of  custom,  climate,  and  self-interest, 
and  disappeared,  for  the  most  part,  with  the  illus 
trious  men  who  had  fanned  it  into  existence. 
Washington  complains,  in  a  letter  addressed  to 
Lafayette,  in  1786,  that  "  petitions  for  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery,  presented  to  the  Virginia  legis 
lature,  could  scarcely  obtain  a  hearing."  And 
Jeiferson,  writing  in  his  old  age,  laments,  with 

*  It  may  be  stated,  on  the  authority  of  St.  George  Tucker.  (Profes 
sor  of  Law  in  William  and  Mary  College,  Va.,)  that  between  the  years 
1782  and  1797  there  were  upwards  of  ten  thousand  private  manumis 
sions  in  Virginia  alone. 


THE   PROSPECTS   OF   THE   BARONS.  33 

the  pathos  of  frue  philanthropic  sensibility,  the 
disappointment  of  his  hopes  as  regards  any  popu 
lar  interest  in  emancipation. 

In  North  Carolina,  the  subject  of  abolition  was 
agitated,  especially  by  the  Quakers  ;  but  the  legis 
lature  of  that  State,  backed  by  a  large  majority 
of  the  people,  was  unfriendly  to  their  humane 
views.* 

In  a  word,  in  nearly  all  the  States  where  slavery 
still  subsisted,  especially  in  those  south  of  the 
Potomac,  the  resolution  began  to  be  evinced  to 
perpetuate  the  system  at  all  hazards.  From  that 
time  the  public  opinion  of  foreign  nations  began 
to  be  defied,  and  that  of  this  country  began  to  be 
corrupted,  in  the  interest  of  despotic  society. 

*  Hildreth's  History,  Vol.  III.  pp.  393,  394. 


2  * 


V. 


PRESTIGE    OF    THE    BARONS.  —  OMENS.  —  THE    SHIP    OF 
EMPIRE  LAUNCHED. 

To  the  eye  of  the  sagacious  moralist,  it  must 
have  been  as  evident  seventy-five  years  ago  as  it 
now  is,  that  slavery  cannot  be  tolerated  in  a  politi 
cal  system  like  ours,  without  endangering  every  in 
stitution  and  prerogative  'sacred  to  freemen.  Can 
we  conceive  of  a  "  powerful  oligarchy,  possessed 
of  immense  wealth,"  existing  in  any  country  with 
out  attempting  to  influence  its  politics  ?  Since 
even  banking,  manufacturing,  and  commercial 
capital  have  been  known  to  interfere  with  the  le 
gitimate  course  of  legislation  in  many  instances, 
can  we  apprehend  less  from  slave  capital  ?  —  es 
pecially  when  it  is  allowed  to  accumulate  to  the 
enormous  sum  of  two  thousand  millions  of  dollars  ! 

Besides,  the  slave-capitalists  are  not  simply  one 
class  in  the  slave-holding  States ;  they  are  the  DOM 
INANT  CLASS,  having  positive  control  of  the  social, 
religious,  and  political  power  of  those  States.  It 
has  been  very  pertinently  observed,  that  "  a  weak 
er  prestige,  fewer  privileges,  and  less  comparative 
wealth  have  enabled  the  British  aristocracy  to  rule 
England  for  two  centuries,  though  the  root  of  their 


PRESTIGE   OF   THE   BAROXS.  35 

strength  was  cut  at  Naseby."  *  Can  we  fail  to  see, 
therefore,  that  the  system  of  slavery  —  concentrat 
ing,  as  it  does,  all  political  influence  in  a  few  men 
who  are  virtually  absolute  in  their  respective  States 
—  becomes  a  most  formidable  enemy  to  free  soci 
ety,  and  is  naturally  instigated  by  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation  to  undermine  and  overthrow  its 
rival  ? 

Moreover,  the  temper  and  manners  which  slav 
ery  continually  fosters  tend  to  weaken  the  securi 
ties  of  freedom.  It  was  well  remarked  by  Dr. 
Channing,f  that  "  free  institutions  rest  on  the  love 
of  liberty  and  the  love  of  order."  And  "  how 
plain  it  is  that  no  man  can  love  liberty  with  a  true 
love  who  has  the  heart  to  wrest  it  from  others  !  At 
tachment  to  freedom  does  not  consist  in  spurning 
indignantly  a  yoke  prepared  for  our  own  necks ; 
for  this  is  done  even  by  the  savage  and  the  beast 
of  prey.  It  is  a  moral  sentiment,  an  impartial 
desire  and  choice  that  others  as  well  as  ourselves 
may  be  protected  from  every  wrong,  may  be  ex 
empted  from  every  unjust  restraint.  Slave-hold 
ing,  when  perpetuated  selfishly  and  from  choice, 
is  at  open  war  with  this  generous  principle.  It  is 
a  plain,  habitual  contempt  of  human  rights,  and 
of  course  impairs  that  sense  of  their  sanctity  which 
is  their  best  protection.  It  offers,  every  day  and 
hour,  a  precedent  of  usurpation  to  the  ambitious. 
It  creates  a  caste  with  despotic  powers  ;  and  under 

*  Philosophy  of  the  Abolition  Movement,  by  Wendell  Phillips,  p.  38. 
t  Channing'?  Works,  Vol.  II.  pp.  85,  86. 


36  OUR   TWO   SYSTEMS   OF   SOCIETY. 

such  guardians  "  liberty  and  justice  are  about  as 
secure  as  were  the  infant  princes  whom  the  tyrant 
smothered  in  the  Tower. 

Slavery  is  equally  incompatible  with  the  love  of 
order.  It  fosters  the  habit  of  command,  but  not 
the  virtue  of  obedience.  The  slaveholder  is  accus 
tomed  to  see  his  arbitrary  will  or  changing  caprice 
obeyed  by  servile  multitudes  as  their  supreme  law. 
In  the  natural  growth  of  his  character  under  this 
system,  he  comes  to  arrogate  to  himself  an  author 
ity  that  transcends  the  law  of  the  land.  The  sub 
mission  he  has  been  accustomed  to  receive  from 
the  slave,  he  comes  to  exact  of  the  freeman.  His 
despotic  disposition  resisted,  he  appeals  to  vio 
lence,  as  he  would  to  execute  his  plantation-edict. 
He  relies  on  the  bowie-knife  and  revolver,  instead 
of  the  magistrate,  to  enforce  his  supposed  rights. 
Thus  society  in  all  the  slave-holding  States  gravi 
tates  toward  anarchy.  And  thus  slavery  prepares 
the  mind  of  a  community,  by  its  inevitable  effects 
upon  sentiments  and  manners,  for  the  inception 
of  conspiracies  that  aim  at  the  subversion  of  the 
government  itself,  and  the  elevation  of  universal 
despotism  by  military  violence.* 

*  "  It  is  evident  that  there  is  no  way  to  save  our  government  and 
render  it  permanent,  but  by  constant  resistance  to  the  spirit  of  despot 
ism, —  a  spirit  whose  nature  and  essence  is  hostility  to  free  institu 
tions.  We  should  repel  its  first  approaches,  reject  its  alliance,  dread 
its  smile,  suspect  it  under  the  fairest  disguises,  and  always,  every 
where,  and  in  every  shape,  reprobate  it  as  the  deadliest  foe  of  republi 
canism.  It  is  .believed  that  Americans  estimate  these  truths,  so  far 
as  they  relate  to  foreign  despotisms,  and  are  prepared  to  resist  all 
anti-republican  influences  from  abroad,  —  excepting  always  those  of 


OMENS.  37 

All  these  dangers,  latent  in  the  system  of  Slavery 
as  a  political  element,  the  Federal  Government  was 
obliged  to  ignore ,  when  it  went  into  operation.  It 
had  to  incur  the  risk.  It  had  to  "  take  the 
chances."  It  had  to  confide  in  the  possible  virtue 

Popery.  So  jealous  are  we  about  foreign  interference  that,  let  but  an 
Englishman  come  amongst  us,  and  propose  to  discuss  publicly  our 
own  institutions,  and  at  once  the  outcry  is  raised,  he  is  an  emissary 
commissioned  by  despotism  to  fire  the  temple  of  liberty.  But  the 
same  considerations  which  call  for  the  exercise  of  vigilance  toward 
foreign  influences,  apply  with  an  hundred-fold  power  to  that  despotism 
which  is  in  our  midst;  and  yet  what  is  the  state  of  the  public  mind 
with  regard  to  the  latter  ?  No  concern  about  its  existence  here,  —  no 
suspicion  of  its  character,  —  not  even  so  much  as  a  misgiving  that  it 
bus  any  tendency  to  sap  the  foundations  of  the  government, — nay,  it 
is  a  matter  of  serious  debate  whether  it  be  not  '  the  corner-stone  of 
republicanism'!  It  is  surely  time  that  Americans  should  investigate 
the  precise  bearings  of  slavery  upon  our  free  institutions,  —  that  we 
should  fully  understand  both  the  manner  in  which  it  endangers  them 
and  the  imminency  of  the  danger.  It  will  not  require  great  research 
to  see  that  all  the  combined  power  of  Europe's  aristocracies,  mon 
archies,  and  despotisms  cannot  do  one  tenth  part  as  much  to  subvert 
our  liberties  as  our  own  system  of  domestic  slavery."  —  American 
Slavery  vs.  Liberty,  by  a  Kentuckian,  in  Anti-Slavery  Magazine  for  Oct. 
1836. 

This  is  only  an  echo  of  Jefferson's  famous  words:  "  The  whole  com 
merce  between  master  and  slave  is  a  perpetual  exercise  of  the  most 
boisterous  passions,  the  most  unremitting  despotism,  on  the  one  part, 
and  degrading  submission  on  the  other.  Our  children  see  this,  and 

learn  to  imitate  it:  for  man  is  an  imitative  animal The  parent 

storms,  the  child  looks  on,  catches  the  lineaments  of  wrath,  puts  on 
the  same  airs  in  the  circle  of  smaller  slaves,  gives  a  loose  rein  to  the 
worst  of  passions;  and,  thus  nursed,  educated,  and  daily  exercised  in 
TYRANNY,  cannot  but  be  stamped  by  its  odious  peculiarities.  The 
man  must  be  a  prodigy  who  can  retain  his  manners  and  morals  unde- 
praved  by  such  circumstances.  And  with  what  execration  should  a 
statesman  be  loaded,  who,  permitting  one  half  the  citizens  to  trample 
on  the  rights  of  the  other,  transforms  those  into  despots  and  these  into 
enemies,  destroys  the  morals  of  the  one  and  the  amor patrice  of  the 
other!  And  can  the  liberties  of  the  nation  be  thought  secure,  when 


38  OUR   TWO   SYSTEMS   OF   SOCIETY. 

of  the  people,  in  the  progress  of  liberal  principles, 
in  the  wisdom  and  integrity  of  future  administra 
tions,  and  in  the  merciful  overrulings  of  Divine 
Providence. 

Republican  society  was  not  launched  under  as 
favorable  auspices  as  many  have  supposed.  Dan 
gerous  rocks  lay  near  the  channel.  Insidious 
currents  waited  for  the  splendid  ship.  Rapacious 
pirates  lay  hidden  in  quiet  lagoons,  hoping  she 
might  drift  within  their  reach.  A  shoal  of  wran 
gling  pilots  were  struggling  for  a  place  at  her  helm. 
And  so  she  lifted  her  anchors,  spread  forth  her 
canvas,  gave  her  starry  flag  to  the  breeze,  and 
sailed  away  into  the  untracked  Future.  And  the 
ghosts  of  dead  Liberties  beyond  the  sea  —  rising 
from  their  sepulchres  —  wafted  after  her  their  sol 
emn  "  God  speed  !  " 

we  have  removed  their  only  firm  basis,  —  a  conviction  in  the  minds 
of  the  people  that  their  liberties  are  the  gifts  of  God,  that  they  are  not 
to  be  violated  but  with  his  wrath?  Indeed,  I  tremble  for  my  country 
when  I  reflect  that  God  is  just,  that  his  justice  cannot  sleep  forever," 
&c.,  &c. 


PART    II. 

OUR  POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 


"  Who  can  reflect,  unmoved,  upon  the  round 
Of  smooth  and  solemnized  complacencies, 
By  which,  on  Christian  lands,  from  age  to  age, 
Profession  mocks  performance.    Earth  is  sick, 
And  Heaven  is  weary,  of  the  hollow  words 
Which  states  and  kingdoms  utter  when  they  talk 

Of  truth  and  justice." 

WORDSWORTH. 

"  Casca.  I  believe  these  are  portentous  things 
Unto  the  climate  that  they  point  upon. 

"  Cicero.  Indeed,  it  is  a  strange-disposed  time : 
But  men  may  construe  things  after  their  fashion, 
Clean  from  the  purpose  of  the  things  themselves." 

SHAKSPEARE,  Julius  Gxsar. 

"  0  masters !  if  I  were  disposed  to  stir 
Your  hearts  and  minds  to  mutiny  and  rage, 
I  slwild  do  Brutus  wrong,  and  Cassius  wrong, 

Who,  you  all  know,  are  honorable  men." 

Ibid. 


"  Unhappily,  the  original  policy  of  the  government,  and  the  original 
principles  of  the  government  in  respect  to  slavery,  did  not  permanently 
control  its  action.  A  change  occurred,  —  almost  imperceptible  at  first, 
but  becoming  more  and  more  marked  and  decided,  until  nearly  total." 
—  HoN.  S.  P.  CHASE,  1850. 

"  What,  then,  have  been  the  causes  which  have  created  so  new  a 
feeling  in  favor  of  slavery  in  the  South,  —  which  have  changed  the 
whole  nomenclature  of  the  South  on  the  subject,  —  till  it  has  now  be 
come  a  cherished  institution  there?  "  —  DANIEL  WEBSTER,  1850. 

"  The  general  decline  of  the  spirit  of  liberty  that  was  witnessed  in 
the  community,  was  witnessed  also  in  the  Church,  and  the  same  moral 
lethargy  and  stupor  came  over  them  both.  The  influx  of  wealth,  the 
erection  of  castes  and  aristocracies  in  society,  that  displaced  simplicity 
and  equality  in  the  State,  produced  similar  effects  in  the  Church. 

The  unexpected  profitableness  of  slave  labor  in  the  production 

of  cotton  was  a  temptation  to  the  Church,  as  well  as  to  the  rest  of  the 
community,  and  the  Southern  Church  fell  into  the  snare."  — WILLIAM 
GOODELL,  1852. 

"  The  judgment  of  God  will  be  very  visible  in  infatuating  a  people 
ripe  and  prepared  for  destruction."  —  CLARENDON. 


I. 

THE  PROCESS.  — THE  CAPITAL  INFECTED. 

/  WE  have  seen  that  the  government  of  the  Union 
I  was  organized  in  the  interest  of  REPUBLICAN  Soci- 
l  ETY.  Under  such  a  government,  the  interests  of 
1  despotism  could  be  subserved,  and  its  ultimate  as- 
7  cendency  secured,  only  by  an  insidious  process  of 
*  corruption  and  usurpation.  That  process  we  are 
now  to  describe.  It  consisted  in  multiplying  slave- 
holding  States,  thereby  increasing  the  representa 
tive  power  of  slavery  in  the  national  legislature ; 
in  obtaining  a  new  interpretation  of  the  Constitu 
tion  ;  in  corrupting  the  Judiciary ;  and  in  deprav 
ing  the  Christian  Church. 

These  changes  in  the  practical  working  of  the 
government,  and  in  the  tone  of  our  ecclesiastical 
bodies,  might  be  presumed  to  involve  a  corre 
sponding  degradation  of  public  sentiment,  until 
carried  so  far  as  to  awaken  alarm  in  the  more 
sagacious  of  the  people,  and  stimulate  resistance 
and  reform. 

Moreover,  soon  after  the  founding  of  the  gov 
ernment,  the  interests  of  freedom  came  under  cer 
tain  malign  influences  growing  out  of  the  location 
of  the  capital  in  a  slave  territory.  When  the  Dis- 


\ 


42  OUR  POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

trict  of  Columbia  was  ceded  to  the  United  States, 
all  the  laws  of  Maryland  heretofore  operating  on 
the  soil  were  adopted  by  Congress  in  a  body,  with 
out  change  or  modification.  Whoever  desires  to 
learn  the  character  of  those  laws  will  find  them 
collected  in  a  small  work  entitled  "  THE  BLACK 
CODE  OF  THE  DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA." 

One  law  provides  a  liberal  reward  for  "  every 
person  who  seizes  and  takes  up  a  runaway  slave." 
If  the  individual  thus  arrested  is  proved  to  be  a 
slave,  the  master  pays  the  reward,  together  with 
the  "imprisonment  fees,"  when  he  takes  posses 
sion  of  his  "  property."  And  if  the  individual 
turns  out  to  be  a  freeman,  and  no  claimant  ap 
pears,  it  becomes  the  duty  of  the  marshal  to  ad 
vertise  him,  and  sell  him  as  a  slave,  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  .his  arbitrary  arrest  and  unjust  incar 
ceration  !  Thus  the  United  States,  in  locating  the 
seat  of  government  on  the  Potomac,  adopted  and 
sanctioned  a  law  under  which  free  and  innocent 
men  are  deliberately  sold  into  slavery,  for  the  sake 
of  rewarding  the  kidnapper,  and  paying  the  jailer 
for  retaining  his  victim  ! 

It  would  be  some  relief  to  the  national  con 
science  to  be  permitted  to  believe  that  this  mon 
strous  law  has  been  a  dead  letter ;  but  this  conso 
lation  is  not  left  us.  Many  freemen  have  been 
sold  into  slavery  under  its  operation.  In  1827, 
1828,  and  1829,  the  subject  was  laid  before  a  Con 
gressional  committee,  from  whose  report  it  appears 
that,  during  those  three  years  alone,  one  hundred 


THE   CAPITAL  INFECTED.  43 

and  seventy-nine  persons  were  committed  as  fugi 
tives,  among  whom  not  less  than  twenty-six  were 
found  to  be  free  persons.  Six  of  these  free  per 
sons  were  actually  sold  into  slavery,  the  rest  being 
saved  from  that  fate  only  by  the  humanity  of  the 
jailer.  Estimating  the  aggregate  fruit  of  despot 
ism  in  the  District  by  the  development  of  these 
three  years,  aided  by  the  records  of  the  Washing 
ton  jail,  we  see  how  appalling  is  the  turpitude  of 
crime  which  the  nation  has  committed  against  the 
fundamental  law  of  its  existence. 

There  are  other  laws  pertaining  to  the  District, 
and  enjoying  the  sanction  of  the  Federal  author 
ity,  which  are  not  less  inhuman.  Thus,  if  a  slave 
is  caught  away  from  home  without  a  pass,  the  con 
stable  arresting  him  "is  required  to  whip  him  on 
the  bare  back  at  his  discretion,  not  exceeding 
thirty-nine  lashes"  For  going  abroad  by  night, 
or  riding  a  horse  in  the  daytime,  without  permis 
sion,  he  is  exposed  to  "  whipping,  cropping,  or 
branding  in  the  cheek."  For  running  away,  and 
resisting  his  pursuers,  he  may  be  "  shot,  killed, 
and  destroyed."  Besides  these  statutes  directly 
affecting  the  slaves,  there  are  others  legalizing  a 
systematic  tyranny  upon  free  colored  men  residing 
in  the  District,  against  distributing  publications 
adverse  to  slavery,  and  providing  for  a  special 
police,  at  an  enormous  expense,  as  "  a  national 
guard  "  in  the  service  of  the  slave  masters. 

The  establishment  of  our  capital  in  a  slave  dis 
trict  thus  subjugated  to  the  most  barbarous  and 


44  OUR  POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

tyrannical  laws  to  be  found  on  record,  has  tended 
to  strengthen  every  aggressive  measure  by  which 
the  despotic  system  speedily  triumphed  over  the 
nation.  The  halls  of  our  legislation  and  the  home 
of  our  executive,  established  in  that  infected  dis 
trict,  became  impervious  to  the  nobler  influences 
of  the  country.  The  action  of  Congress  became 
embarrassed  —  perhaps  we  may  say  controlled  — 
in  important  emergencies  by  local  opinion  and  in 
terest.  And,  owing  to  the  same  influences,  Wash 
ington  City  has  been,  under  the  thrilling  perils  of 
this  rebellion,  and  continues  to  be  at  this  moment 
(November,  1861),  as  rank  with  the  breath  of 
treason  as  Richmond.  If  the  government  is  slow 
to  respond  to  the  better  impulses  of  the  nation,  — 
if  it  tenderly  admonishes  traitors  in  arms,  leaves 
the  Republic  to  bleed  away  its  life  that  slavery  may 
continue  to  exist,  and  still  shields  four  or  five  hun 
dred  clerks  in  the  Federal  offices  from  the  grip  of 
outraged  Justice,  —  we  must  look  for  an  explana 
tion  to  the  fatal  locality  of  the  capital,  and  to  the 
accursed  sorcery  that  appears  to  seize  most  of 
those  who  pass  its  blighting  precincts. 


II. 


TERRITORIAL  EXTENSION  OF  SLAVERY. 

THE  first  slave  State  admitted  into  the  Union 
was  Kentucky.  It  was  formed  of  territory  origi 
nally  comprised  in  the  State  of  Virginia,  and  nat 
urally  adopted  her  domestic  institution.*  The 
admittance  of  Vermont  as  a  free  State,  however, 
preserved  the  equilibrium  of  interest  in  the  Repub 
lic.  Then  came  Tennessee,  originally  ceded  to 
the  United  States  by  North  Carolina,  under  the 
proviso  "  that  no  regulation  made  or  to  be  made 
by  Congress  shall  tend  to  the  emancipation  of 
slaves."  The  Constitution  of  Tennessee  adopted 
the  code  of  North  Carolina,  thus  "  tacitly  legaliz 
ing  the  system  of  slavery,"  while  avoiding  a  direct 
allusion  to  the  subject. f 

The  acquisition  of  Louisiana  and  Florida  — 
though  of  obvious  value,  in  a  commercial  point 
of  view,  to  the  whole  country  —  opened  immense 
fields  for  the  propagation  of  slavery,  and  greatly 

*  It  seems,  however,  that,  "  in  the  Convention  that  formed  the 
Constitution  of  Kentucky,  in  1780,  the  effort  to  prohibit  slavery  was 
nearly  successful."  "  But  for  the  interest  of  two  large  slaveholders  — 
Messrs.  Breckinridge  and  Nicholson  —  the  measure,  it  is  believed, 
would  have  been  carried."  —  Power  of  Congress,  p.  34. 

f  Hildreth's  History,  Vol.  IV.  pp.  150,  632. 


46  OUR  POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

enhanced  the  influence  of  the  despotic  interest  in 
the  nation. 

But  the  application  of  Missouri  marks  the  rise 
of  the  great  controversy  among  us  on  the  exten 
sion  of  slavery.  Already  four  slave  States  — 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Louisiana,  and  Mississippi 

—  had  been  admitted,  with  little  debate  or  opposi 
tion,  —  being  offset  against  an   equal  number  of 
free  States,  namely,  Vermont,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and 
Illinois.     But,  as  Alabama  was  about  to  come  in 
as  a  slave  State,  it  was  very  reasonably  demanded 

—  in  accordance  with  the  rule  hitherto  observed 

—  that  slavery  should  be  prohibited  in  Missouri. 
Accordingly,  Mr.  TALLMADGE  moved,  in  the  House, 
to  insert  a  clause  in  the  bill  relative  to  Missouri, 
"  prohibiting  any  further  introduction  of  slaves, 
and  granting   freedom   to   the   children  of  those 
already  there  on  their  attaining  the  age  of  twenty- 
five."     This  motion,  after  an  exciting  debate  of 
three  days,  was  carried  by  a  small  majority.     The 
bill  went  to  the  Senate,  where  it  received  such 
amendments  as  the  House  refused  to  adopt,  and 
so  was  lost.     A  similar  effort,  made  at  the  same 
time,  to  organize  the  Territory  of  Arkansas  under 
a  clause  prohibiting  slavery,  failed  to  secure  even 
the  vote  of  the  House.     At  no  distant  day,  both 
States  came  into  the  Union,  without  any  restriction 
upon  the  system  of  slavery ;   and  the  balance  of 
territorial  weight,  thus  inclined  in  favor  of  des 
potism,  has  never  been  restored. 

It  was  during  this  first  debate  on  the  Missouri 


TERRITORIAL   EXTENSION   OF   SLAVERY.  47 

question,  or  rather  after  the  defeat  of  the  prohibi 
tory  clause  in  the  Arkansas' Bill,  that  the  cele 
brated  compromise  line,  dividing  the  territory  west 
of  the  Mississippi,  was  first  proposed.  As  origi 
nally  suggested,  that  line  was  to  follow  the  north 
ern  boundary  of  Arkansas  ;  *  but  its  final  adoption 
was  made  dependent  on  the  admission  of  Missouri 
as  a  slave  State.  Nor  did  it  prove,  even  then, 
a  barrier  to  the  aggressive  cupidity  of  the  slave 
holders,  as  the  duplicity  of  two  administrations 
and  the  wrongs  of  Kansas  impressively  testify. 

While  the  slave-holding  propaganda  were  strug 
gling  to  bind  Missouri  to  their  empire,  they  began 
to  covet  a  new  province  belonging  to  a  sister 
republic.f  The  annexation  of  Texas  began  to  be 
openly  agitated  in  the  South  and  West  as  far 
back  as  1829,  and  the  motives  that  inspired  the 
movement  were  boldly  avowed.  It  was  argued, 
about  this  time,  in  a  series  of  papers  attributed  to 
a  gentleman  who  subsequently  occupied  a  seat  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  that  the  acquisi 
tion  of  that  extensive  domain  would  add  five  or 
six  slave-holding  States  to  the  Union,  or  even  nine 
States  as  large  as  Kentucky.  "  In  Virginia,  about 
the  same  time,  calculations  were  made  as  to  the 
increased  value  which  would  thus  be  given  to 
slaves,  and  it  was  even  said  that  this  acquisition 
would  raise  the  price  fifty  per  cent."  f  Thus 

*  Hildreth,  Vol.  VI.  pp.  661,  662.  t  Ibid.  p.  713. 

\  Dr.  Channing's  Letter  on  the  Annexation  of  Texas,  Works,  Vol. 
1L  p.  218. 


48  OUR  POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

would  be  opened  a  new  market  for  the  sale  of 
human  beings  ;  and  thus  another  "  vast  accession 
of  political  power  "  would  be  secured  to  the  slave- 
holding  despotism.  "  The  project  of  dismembering 
a  neighboring  republic,  that  slave-holders  and  slaves 
might  overspread  a  region  which  had  been  conse 
crated  to  a  free  population,  was  discussed  in  news 
papers  as  coolly  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  obvious 
right  and  unquestionable  humanity."  * 

The  sinuous  intrigues  and  impudent  frauds  by 
which  Mexico  was  robbed  of  this  province,!  with 
a  view  to  its  ultimate  annexation  to  the  Union,  as 
another  contribution  to  the  already  preponderating 
influence  of  slavery,  have  become  matters  of  his 
torical  certainty ;  and  the  fact  that  this  measure 
created  so  little  alarm  in  the  free  States,  at  the 
time  it  was  being  consummated,  affords  one  proof 
out  of  many,  that  we  had  become  infatuated  with 
the  lust  of  empire,  and  that  the  sentiment  of 
liberty  had  become  torpid  in  the  nation. 

In  vain  a  few  men  at  the  North,  not  wholly 
blind  to  the  purposes  and  tendencies  of  slavery, 
raised  an  indignant  voice  in  protest,  —  as  had  been 
done,  indeed,  during  the  sacrifice  of  Missouri ;  but 
the  baleful  project  had  acquired  too  great  an 
impetus  to  be  arrested.  MR.  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 
relates  —  and  we  quote  the  incident  to  illustrate 
the  fatal  blindness  of  the  North  —  "  being  one  of 
a  committee  which  waited  on  ABBOTT  LAWRENCE, 

*  Dr.  Channing's  Letter,  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  198. 
t  North  American  Review  for  July,  1836. 


TERRITORIAL  EXTENSION  OF  SLAVERY.  49 

a  year  or  two  only  before  annexation,  to  ask  his 
countenance  to  some  general  movement,  without 
distinction  of  party,  against  the  Texas  scheme. 
He  smiled  at  our  fears,"  says  MB.  PHILLIPS,  "beg 
ged  us  to  have  no  apprehensions  ;  stating  that  his 
correspondence  with  leading  men  at  Washington 
enabled  him  to  assure  us  annexation  was  impos 
sible,  and  that  the  South  itself  was  determined  to 
defeat  the  project.  A  short  time  after,  Senators 
and  Representatives  from  Texas  took  their  seats  in 
Congress."  * 

Thus  the  relative  positions  of  the  two  systems 
of  society  were  changed. 

At  the  formation  of  the  Union,  REPUBLICAN 
SOCIETY  was  in  the  ascendant,  —  all  its  interests 
guaranteed  by  the  supreme  law  of  the  nation. 
Now,  DESPOTIC  SOCIETY  was  in  the  ascendant,  hav 
ing  the  government  under  its  control,  and  pros 
tituting  all  the  energies  of  the  Republic  to  the 
extension  of  the  blighting  curse  of  human  bond 
age. 

Once,  the  States  contiguous  to  those  which  had 
abolished  slavery  —  smitten  by  the  sterility  and 
ignorance  which  the  system  entails,  and  viewing 
across  the  border  the  salutary  results  of  freedom 
—  were  turning  their  thoughts  towards  emancipa 
tion.  Their  proximity  to  States  flourishing  under 
free  labor,  and  ennobled  by  every  element  of 
social  progress,  was  gradually  forcing  upon  their 

*  Philosophy  of  the  Abolition  Movement,  p.  24. 
3  D 


50  OUR  POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

reluctant  minds  the  propriety  of  adopting  the 
more  humane  and  prosperous  system.  But  the 
opening  of  immense  territories  in  the  Southwest 
to  the  cupidity  of  slavery  at  once  arrested  the 
tendency  to  emancipation  in  the  border  States.* 

The  almost  unlimited  demand  for  slave  labor 
on  the  rice,  sugar,  and  cotton  plantations  of  those 
new  territories,  gave  a  fearful  impulse  to  the  rear 
ing  of  slaves  in  the  old  States,  and  opened  a 
domestic  trade  in  the  bodies  and  souls  of  our  fel 
low-creatures,  as  infamous,  to  say  the  least,  as  it 
was  lucrative. 

Thus  slavery  —  once  apparently  in  the  last  stage 
of  dissolution  in  Virginia  and  Kentucky,  in  Dela 
ware  and  Maryland  —  revived  in  a  more  virulent 
character,  and  assumed  a  more  shameful  attitude 
than  ever,  in  those  States,  while  it  spread  its 
mortal  blight,  by  successive  aggressions,  and  by 
the  wicked  complicity  of  a  majority  of  the  Amer 
ican  people,  over  the  fairest  regions  of  the  conti 
nent. 


*  See  this  view  sustained  by  Justice  McLean  in  his  argument  in 
the  Dred  Scott  case. 


III. 


SLAVE  REPRESENTATION. 

LET  us  now  observe  more  particularly  how  the 
increase  of  slaves,  and  consequently  of  slave  rep 
resentation,  was  made  to  affect  the  political  action 
of  the  country. 

When  the  principle  of  slave  representation  was 
proposed  to  be  admitted  into  the  Constitution,  it 
was  indignantly  resisted ;  nor  was  the  principle 
finally  conceded  to  the  South  until  coupled  with 
another,  providing  that  their  proportion  of  the 
direct  taxes  that  might  be  levied  should  be  in 
creased  in  the  ratio  of  such  representation.  This 
proviso  was  probably  designed  to  operate  as  a  prac 
tical  check  upon  the  inordinate  growth  of  slave 
representation ;  and  at  the  same  time  to  relieve 
the  Constitution  of  the  odium  of  recognizing  any 
interest  peculiar  to  slavery.*  Such,  however,  has 

*  The  views  of  Rev.  S.  J.  May  upon  this  clause  in  the  Constitution 
—  which  I  had  not  read  when  this  part  of  my  essay  was  penned  — 
appear  to  me  quite  original  and  worthy  of  note.  While  the  remarks 
of  my  esteemed  friend  do  not  affect  anything  which  I  have  said  in  this 
section  concerning  the  pernicious  consequences  of  slave  representa 
tion,  they  do  vindicate  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  from  any  de 
sign  to  favor  the  system  of  slavery,  when  they  admitted  the  clause  in 
question.  See  Quarterly  Anti-Slavery  Magazine,  pp.  80-  82. 


52  OUR   POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

not  been  the  effect,  and  the  case  presents  an  in 
structive  example  of  the  fact,  that  no  compromise 
with  injustice,  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  a  present 
difficulty,  and  in  the  specious  assurance  of  a  re 
mote  advantage,  ever  fulfils  its  flattering  promise. 

In  the  several  States,  before  their  union  under 
the  Federal  compact,  it  had  been  customary  to 
provide  for  debts  and  expenditures  by  direct  taxa 
tion;  and  it  was  naturally  enough  supposed  that, 
under  the  new  government,  a  large  part  of  the 
revenue  would  be  furnished  by  the  same  process. 
But,  in  point  of .  fact,  —  "  with  the  exception  of 
two  brief  periods,  during  the  French  war,  and  the 
war  with  England,  —  the  revenue  of  the  United 
States  has  been  raised  by  duties  on  imports.  The 
greatest  proportion  of  these  duties  are,  of  course, 
paid  by  the  free  States;  for  here,  the  poorest 
laborer  daily  consumes  several  articles  of  foreign 
production,  of  which  from  one  eighth  to  'one  half 
the  price  is  a  tax  paid  to  government.  The  cloth 
ing  of  the  slave  population  increases  the  revenue 
very  little,  and  their  food  almost  none  at  all." 

Thus,  in  the  practical  operation  of  our  govern 
ment,  the  South  has  obtained  all  the  advantages 
of  the  proviso  for  slave  representation,  while  fur 
nishing  scarcely  any  of  the  anticipated  equivalent. 
The  effect  of  the  arrangement  upon  the  fortunes 
of  the  slaves  has  been  peculiarly  aggravating,  for 
—  since  the  prerogative  of  slave  representation 
has  always  been  used  to  extend  the  slave  power  — 
the*  slaves  have  been  practically  made  to  vote  for 


SLAVE  REPKESENTATION.  53 

the  perpetuity  of  slavery,  and  to  "  furnish  halters 
to  hang  their  own  posterity."* 

The  immeasurable  advantage  which  this  pre 
rogative  has  given  to  the  South,  in  a  political 
point  of  view,  was  forcibly  expressed,  many  years 
ago,  by  a  Southern  gentleman,  the  HON.  W.  B. 
SEABROOK.  In  a  pamphlet  on  the  management 
of  slaves,  he  is  said  to  have  used  this  language: 
"An  addition  of  one  million  of  dollars  to  the 
private  fortune  of  DANIEL  WEBSTER,  would  not 
give  to  Massachusetts  more  influence  than  she 
now  possesses  in  the  Federal  councils.  On  the 
other  hand,  every  increase  of  slave  property  in 
South  Carolina  is  a  fraction  thrown  into  the  scale 
by  which  her  representation  in  Congress  is  de 
termined" 

As  far  back  as  1833,  the  importance  of  the 
slave  element,  as  an  instrument  of  political  as 
cendency,  was  well  understood  at  the  South,  and 
by  a  few  men  at  the  North.  In  a  speech  made 
in  Congress  that  year,  by  MR.  CLAYTON  of  Geor 
gia,  he  boldly  alluded  to  the  slave  population  as 
"  the  machinery  of  the  South."  Upwards  of 
twenty  members  had  already  obtained  seats  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  by  virtue  of  slave 
representation.  In  a  speech  made  three  days 
later,  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  declared,  that,  tracing 
the  history  of  the  government  from  its  founda 
tion,  "  it  would  be  easy  to  prove  that  its  decisions 
had  been  affected  in  general  by  less  majorities 

*  Mrs.  Child. 


54  OUR   POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

than  that."  He  would  go  even  further,  he  said, 
and  insist  that  the  slave  representation  had  ever 
been,  in  fact,  THE  RULING  POWER  OF  THE  GOVERN 
MENT. 

"  The  history  of  the  Union  has  afforded  a  con 
tinual  proof,"  said  MR.  ADAMS,  "  that  this  rep 
resentation  of  property,  which  they  enjoy  as  well 
in  the  election  of  President  and  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States  as  upon  the  floor  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  has  secured  to  the  slave- 
holding  States  the  entire  control  of  THE  NATIONAL 
POLICY,  and,  almost  without  exception,  the  pos 
session  of  the  highest  executive  office  of  the  Union. 
Always  united  in  the  purpose  of  regulating  the 
affairs  of  the  whole  Union  by  the  standard  of  the 
slave-holding  interest,  their  disproportionate  num 
bers  iii  the  electoral  colleges  have  enabled  them, 
in  ten  out  of  twelve  quadrennial  elections,  to 
confer  the  chief  magistracy  upon  one  of  their 
own  citizens.  Their  suffrages  at  every  election, 
without  exception,  have  been  almost  exclusively 
confined  to  a  candidate  of  their  own  caste.  Avail 
ing  themselves  of  the  divisions  which,  from  the 
nature  of  man,  always  prevail  in  communities 
entirely  free,  they  have  sought  and  found  aux 
iliaries  in  the  other  quarters  of  the  Union,  by 
associating  the  passions  of  parties  and  the  am 
bition  of  individuals  with  their  own  purposes,  to 
establish  and  maintain  throughout  the  confeder 
ated  nation  the  slave-holding  policy."* 

*  Speech  on  the  Tariff,  Feb.  4,  1833. 


SLAVE  REPRESENTATION.  55 

In  palpable  confirmation  of  these  statements, 
the  offices  of  President  of  the  United  States,  Pres 
ident  of  the  Senate,  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  and  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States,  were  all  occupied  by  incumbents  from  the 
South,  —  pledged  to  the  slave-holding  policy, — 
at  the  very  time  MR.  ADAMS  was  speaking. 

The  most  lamentable  effect  of  this  political  ad 
vantage,  this  imperium  in  imperio,  has  been  expe 
rienced  in  the  corruption  of  Northern  politicians. 
Since  the  South  was  always  certain  to  be  united 
on  every  important  question,  while  the  North  has 
ever  been  more  or  less  divided  ;  and  since  the 
prerogative  of  slave  representation  has  given  to 
the  South,  from  the  beginning,  the  controlling 
power  in  the  government,  —  it  has  generally  been 
found  necessary  for  politicians  from  the  free  States 
to  affiliate  with  the  purposes  of  the  South,  and 
to  adopt  its  policy,  in  order  to  obtain  any  offices 
of  honor  or  emolument  in  the  Federal  Union. 

Thus  the  path  of  ambition  for  Northern  mem 
bers  of  Congress  has  been,  almost  of  necessity, 
the  path  of  subserviency  and  compromise.  The 
highest  Federal  honors  were  accessible  only  to 
those  who  paid  fealty  to  the  slave-holders,  and 
abased  themselves  most  as  the  tools  of  their  ar 
bitrary  policy.  In  a  Republic  nominally  the  freest 
on  the  globe,  the  positions  of  supreme  dignity 
and  trust,  the  executive  and  administrative  offi 
ces,  could  be  won  only  by  bowing  to  the  dictation 
of  an  oligarchy,  and  becoming  ductile  to  the 


56  OUR  POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

crafty  designs  of  a  despotism.  Shameful  and  om 
inous  are  the  anomalies  which  our  political  his 
tory  has  developed.  A  vile  interest,  originally 
lurking  in  the  recesses  of  the  State,  and  aban 
doned  to  die  of  its  own  virulence,  —  an  interest 
under  the  ban  of  public  opinion  the  civilized 
world  over,  and  no  man  so  lost  to  virtue  as  to 
plead  for  it,  —  an  excrescence ,  the  outgrowth  of 
Asiatic  depravity  and  of  feudal  manners,  alien 
alike  to  the  new  nation  and  the  new  age,  —  an 
abominable  thing,  condemned  by  equity,  and  ab 
horred  by  nature,  —  is  warmed  into  vital  action 
by  a  fatal  conjunction  of  circumstances,  encour 
aged  to  emerge  into  the  public  arena,  and  pro 
moted,  in  process  of  time,  to  hold  the  balance 
of  power  in  the  greatest  of  republican  govern 
ments  !  The  leading  statesmen  of  the  country 
—  lured  by  the  sin  the  angels  are  said  to  have 
fallen  by  —  are  seen  quenching  the  light  of  con 
science,  killing  the  instincts  native  to  freemen, 
and  stooping  to  render  homage  to  the  mother  of 
villanies.  And  the  fame  of  many  an  illustrious 
son  of  freedom,  nurtured  by  generous  scholar 
ship,  crowned  by  classic  eloquence,  and  applaud 
ed  by  confiding  States,  is  seen  blighted  by  the 
curse  that  lights  on  the  betrayer  of  humanity, 
and  turned  into  fuel  to  blazon  the  base  man's 
shame ! 


IV. 

SLAVERY  CONSTRUING  THE  CONSTITUTION. 

WHILE  the  immense  territorial  acquisitions  were 
contributing  to  the  ascendency  of  the  DESPOTIC 
SYSTEM,  the  same  dangerous  tendency  was  being 
accelerated  by  a  new  doctrine  of  constitutional  in 
terpretation.  This  doctrine,  by  successive  stages 
of  growth,  extending  through  seventy  years  of  po 
litical  intrigue  and  corruption,  has  become  the 
most  gigantic  and  impudent  sophistry  that  was 
ever  imposed  upon  a  rational  public. 

It  has  virtually  transformed  the  Constitution 
into  a  national  slave-code,  —  perverting  it  into  a 
broad  warrant  for  slave-holding  and  kidnapping  in 
every  State  and  Territory  of  the  Union,  —  degrad 
ing  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  the  level 
of  a  political  club,  and  changing  the  President  of 
the  United  States  into  a  pettifogger,  pleading  in 
the  interest  of  the  Southern  oligarchy.  The  au 
thority  of  most  of  the  courts,  and  the  inordinate 
influence  of  a  single  Northern  statesman,  have  pre 
vailed  so  far  as  to  secure  a  general  acceptance  of 
the  new  dogma  in  the  Free  States.  And  yet  the 
judicial  authorities  are  notoriously  at  variance  on 
the  question  of  constitutional  interpretation,  —  a 

3* 


58  OUR   POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

minority  of  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  arguing  for  the  anti-slavery  con 
struction,  in  opposition  to  their  colleagues  ;  *  and 
even  MR.  WEBSTER,  whose  authority  as  expounder 
of  our  national  law  it  has  long  been  the  fashion  to 
venerate,  was  not  always  consistent  with  his  own 
decisions. 

The  question  is  not  of  so  profound  or  complex  a 
nature  as  to  prevent  men  of  ordinary  intelligence, 
and  of  little  legal  learning,  from  deducing  a  sound 
conclusion.  It  is  only  needful  to  recall  a  few  car 
dinal  facts  to  convince  any  person,  willing  to  be 
guided  by  common  sense,  that  the  Constitution  is 
not  responsible  for  the  system  of  slavery. 

In  the  celebrated  decision  of  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench,  pronounced  by  LORD  MANSFIELD  in  the  case 
of  James  Somersett,  in  1772,  —  a  decision  which 
has  never  been  reversed,  —  it  was  shown  that  slav 
ery  was  nowhere  legalized  by  the  law  of  England. 
"  The  state  of  slavery  is  of  such  a  nature,"  said 
LORD  MANSFIELD,  "  that  it  is  incapable  of  being  in 
troduced  on  any  reasons,  moral  or  political,  but 
only  by  positive  law.  It  is  so  odious  that  nothing 
can  be  suffered  to  support  it  but  positive  law." 

According  to  this  decision,  slavery  never  had  a 
legal  existence  in  the  American  Colonies,  so  long 
as  they  were  subject  to  the  law  of  England.  It 
was  tolerated,  but  was  never  lawful.  When  these 
Colonies  came  to  be  united  in  the  Federal  compact, 

*  See  the  Arguments  of  Justices  McLean  and  Curtis,  in  the  case  of 
Dred  Scott. 


SLAVERY   CONSTRUING  THE   CONSTITUTION.        59 

after  the  Revolution,  it  became  necessary,  in  order 
to  give  slavery  a  legal  existence  in  the  Republic, 
to  enact  into  the  Constitution  a  positive  provision 
for  its  support.  Being  of  such  an  exceptional  na 
ture,  nothing  short  of  an  express  and  positive  en 
actment  could  bring  it  under  the  protection  of  the 
General  Government.  Can  any  such  enactment 
be  found  ?  So  far  from  it,  neither  the  word  slave 
nor  slavery  occurs  in  the  instrument.  The  history 
of  the  formation  of  the  Constitution  shows  that 
these  terms  were  excluded,  not  by  accident,  but 
by  design,  —  so  strenuously  opposed  were  the 
majority  of  its  framers  to  any  recognition  of  the 
system.  Indeed,  as  DR.  CHANNING  has  said,  "  a 
stranger  might  read  it  without  suspecting  the  ex 
istence  of  this  institution  among  us."  And  so 
free  is  the  Constitution  from  any  direct  refer 
ence  to  the  system,  that,  if  slavery  were  abol 
ished  throughout  the  States,  not  a  single  article 
or  section  of  the  instrument  would  require  re 
vision. 

In  the  absence,  then,  of  every  provision  for  the 
support  of  slavery  in  the  supreme  law  of  the  land, 
how  is  it  possible  to  claim  for  it  a  guaranty  in  the 
Constitution,  as  a  national  interest,  —  it  being,  in 
its  nature,  "  so  odious  that  nothing  can  be  suffered 
to  support  it  but  positive  law  "  ? 

In  view  of  the  considerations  just  submitted,  let 
us  now  consider  the  famous  clause  concerning  the 
rendition  of  fugitives,  —  that  Malakoff  of  the  slave 
holders,  in  the  shelter  of  which  the  Fugitive-Slave 


60  OUR  POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

Bill  was  framed.  The  history  of  that  clause  is 
thus  related  by  MR.  HILDRETH  :  "  When  the  article 
came  up  providing  for  the  mutual  delivery  of 
fugitives  from  justice,  a  motion  was  made  by 
BUTLER,  seconded  by  C.  PINCKNEY,  that  fugitive 
slaves  and  servants  be  included.  WILSON  objected 
that  this  would  require  a  delivery  at  the  public 
expense.  SHERMAN  saw  no  more  propriety  in  the 
public  seizing  and  surrendering  a  servant  than  a 
horse.  BUTLER  withdrew  his  motion ;  but  the 
next  day  introduced  a  substitute,  evidently  bor 
rowed  from  an  ordinance  of  Congress  passed  a 
few  days  before,  and  —  in  its  strong  resemblance 
to  one  of  the  clauses  of  the  old  New  England 
Articles  of  Union  —  bearing  plain  marks  of  a  New 
England  hand.  Agreed  to  without  debate,  it  be 
came,  with  some  subsequent  changes  of  phrase 
ology,  that  famous  clause  which  provides  that 4  no 
person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  State,  under 
the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in 
consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be 
discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be 
delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such 
service  or  labor  may  be  due.'  "  * 

Now  that  allusion  is  made,  in  this  clause,  to 
fugitive  slaves,  as  well  as  to  indented  servants,  is 
barely  possible  ;  and  yet  it  seems  that  the  original 
motion,  in  which  the  word  slaves  occurs,  was  not 
suffered  to  pass.  No  open  and  unequivocal  con 
cession  of  this  claim  to  hunt  fugitive  slaves  was 

*  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  III.  p.  622. 


SLAVERY   CONSTRUING   THE   CONSTITUTION.        61 

admitted  into  the  Constitution.  And  the  fact  that 
BUTLER'S  substitute  (in  which  the  word  slaves  had 
been  struck  out)  was  accepted  without  debate, 
seems  to  indicate  that  the  anti-slavery  members 
of  the  Convention  attached  some  different  mean 
ing  to  the  clause,  or  believed  that  its  ambiguity 
would  disarm  it  of  practical  force. 

Admitting  that  this  clause  refers  to  fugitive 
slaves,  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  it  was 
designed  to  express  more  than  a  recommendation 
to  the  States,  in  the  nature  of  comity.  It  is  perti 
nent  to  this  case  to  remember,  that  the  civil  law, 
throughout  the  continent  of  Europe,  without  a 
single  known  exception,  has  decided  "  that  slavery 
can  exist  only  within  the  territory  where  it  has 
been  expressly  established  ;  and  that  if  a  slave 
escapes  or  is  carried  beyond  such  territory,  his 
master  cannot  reclaim  him  unless  by  virtue  of 
some  express  stipulation.*  There  is  no  nation  in 
Europe  which  considers  itself  bound  to  return  to 
his  master  a  fugitive  slave,  under  the  civil  law  or 
the  law  of  nations.  On  the  contrary,  the  slave  is 
held  to  be  free  where  there  is  no  treaty  obligation, 
or  compact  in  some  other  form,  to  return  him  to 
his  master."  f  Whether  the  obscure  clause  in 
question  amounts  to  such  a  "stipulation,"  or 

*  See  Grotius,  lib.  2,  chap.  15,  5,  1;  lib.  10,  chap.  10,  2, 1;  Wicquo- 
post's  Ambassador,  lib.  1,  p.  418:  4  Martin,  385;  Case  of  the  Creole  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  1842;  1  Phillimore  on  International  Law,  316,  335, 
—  cited  by  Justice  McLean. 

t  Argument  of  Justice  McLean  in  Reports  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
Vol.  XIX.  p.  534. 


62  OUR  POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

"  treaty,"  which  the  Constitution  arms  the  Gen 
eral  Government  with  power  to  execute,  may  fairly 
admit  of  doubt.* 

Again :  the  supposed  right  to  reclaim  fugitive 
slaves  is  grounded  on  the  Federal  compact,  to 
which  the  North  and  South  became  voluntary 
partners.  Now  what  is  the  orthodox  doctrine  in 
relation  to  the  conditions  that  render  this  compact 
binding?  We  will  be  guided  here  by  MR.  WEB 
STER,  the  great  "  expounder"  of  our  constitutional 
law  and  of  the  duty  of  the  States.  In  a  speech 
made  at  Capon  Springs,  in  1851,  MR.  WEBSTER 
said :  "It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  either 
the  North  or  the  South  has  the  power  or  the  right 
to  violate  any  part  of  the  Constitution,  and  then 
claim  from  the  other  observance  of  its  provisions. 

*  The  "  doubt  "  expressed  above  has  been  confirmed  by  the  follow 
ing:— 

"  We  frankly  confess,  that  it  is  less  easy  to  give  to  this  article 
than  to  any  other  in  the  Constitution  such  an  exposition  as  will  recon 
cile  it  with  the  avowed  sentiments  and  purposes  of  the  framers.  This 
difficulty  has  been  enhanced,  if  not  created,  however,  by  the  subse 
quent  action  of  Congress  under  this  article.  We  refer  to  the  Act  of 
1793,  for  the  recapture  of  fugitive  slaves.  There  was  then,  no  doubt, 
an  arrangement  made  by  the  General  Government  to  assist  those  who 
have  the  hardihood  to  hold  their  fellow-beings  as  property  to  retake 
them  as  such,  if  they  flee  for  refuge  from  oppression  into  a  free  State. 
But  for  this  the  Congress  of  1793  alone  are  responsible,  not  the  Conven 
tion  of  1788.  The  Act  has  recently  been  pronounced,  by  a  distinguished 
Judge  of  one  of  the  State  Courts,  unconstitutional ;  and  we  have  no 
doubt  that  it  is  so.  Congress  could  have  no  authority  in  the  premises, 
other  than  that  conveyed  in  the  article  before  us.  Now,  we  look  into 
this  in  vain  to  find  any  right  Avhich  our  national  legislature  had  to 
enact  a  law  regulating  the  recapture  of  a  fugitive  slave  from  any 
State,  more  than  it  would  have  had  to  enact  a  law  providing  in  what 


^         SLAVERY   CONSTRUING   THE   CONSTITUTION.        63 

If  the  South  were  to  violate  any  part  of  the  Con 
stitution,  would  the  North  be  any  longer  bound  by 
it  ?  and  if  the  North  were  deliberately  to  violate 
any  part  of  it,  would  the  South  be  bound  any- 
longer  to  observe  its  obligation  ?  How  absurd  it 
would  be  to  suppose,  when  different  parties  enter 
into  a  compact  for  certain  purposes,  that  either 
can  disregard  any  one  provision,  and  expect  the 
other  to  observe  it !  " 

Here  the  doctrine  of  constitutional  obligation  is 
very  .clearly  set  forth,  by  a  jurist  eminently  quali 
fied,  in  the  estimation  of  the  public,  to  illumine 
the  dark  subject.  It  matters  not  that  this  prin 
ciple  was  laid  down  in  the  course  of  an  argument 
for  the  Fugitive-Slave  Bill ;  if  it  is  sound,  we  are 
as  much  entitled  to  the  use  of  it  as  MR.  WEBSTER. 

way  persons  shall  be  held  to  service  in  any  State.  The  Congress  of 
1793,  with  equal  propriety,  might  have  passed  an  act  for  the  abolition 
of  slavery.  The  members  of  that  body  transcended  their  powers.  All 
that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  had  done,  or  could  be  persuaded 
to  do,  was  so  to  construct  the  article  now  under  our  consideration,  that 
those  who  are  held  to  service  in  any  State  may  be  retaken  there,  if 
they  can  be.  But  if  it  leaves  to  the  several  States  to  prescribe  how- 
persons  may  or  shall  be  held  to  service  or  labor  there,  it  equally  leaves 
to  the  several  States  to  prescribe  how  the  claims  to  the  fugitive  shall 
be  preferred  and  proved.  In  short,  the  Constitution  does  leave  the 
responsibility  of  holding  slaves  where  it  was  found,  and  expresses  no 
intention  to  make  the  national  government  any  way  subservient  to  its 
support."  —  REV.  S.  J.  MAY. 

This  question  would  seem  to  be  placed  beyond  controversy  by  the 
testimony  of  Mr.  Madison:  — 

"  On  motion  of  Mr.  Randolph,  the  word  servitude  was  struck  out, 
and  service  unanimously  inserted,  —  the  former  being  thought  to  ex 
press  the  condition  of  slaves,  and  the  latter  the  obligation  of  free  per 
sons."  —  Madison  Papers,  Vol.  III.  p.  1569. 

See,  also,  Goodell,  "  Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery,"  pp.  227  -  231. 


64  OUR  POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

The  doctrine  is,  that  if  cither  the  North  or  the 
South  deliberately  violate  any  part  of  the  Consti 
tution,  the  compact  ceases  to  be  binding  upon  the 
other  party.  Now  let  us  see  which  party  it  was 
that  first  violated  the  Constitution.  As  far  back 
as  1825,  before  any  complaint  had  been  uttered 
against  the  Northern  agitators,  —  before  the  Abo 
litionists  had  fulminated  their  thunders,  or  "  the 
under-ground  railroad"  had  been  laid,  —  "the 
Legislature  of  South  Carolina  passed  an  act  legal 
izing  the  imprisonment  of  colored  persons  who 
should  enter  her  boundaries,  and  their  sale,  in 
case  of  inability  to  pay  their  jail-fees."  Now,  at 
the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  colored 
persons  were  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  right  of 
the  elective  franchise  in  not  less  than  five  of 
the  States,  and  were  of  course  included  among 
the  "  people "  who  voted  to  adopt  that  instru 
ment.*  That  act  of  the  South  Carolina  Legis 
lature  was,  therefore,  a  palpable  violation  of  the 
provision  in  the  Federal  Constitution  which  de 
clares  that  "  the  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be 
entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  of 
citizens  in  the  several  States."  It  is  a  well-known 
fact,  that,  in  both  South  Carolina  and  Louisiana, 
colored  seamen  from  the  North  were  exposed  to 
imprisonment  and  to  sale  from  the  auction  block 
in  payment  of  their  jail-fees,  if  found  in  the  ports 
of  Charleston  and  New  Orleans.  With  a  view  to 

*  Argument  of  Curtis,  Reports  of  the  Supreme  Court,  Vol.  XIX. 
p.  674. 


SLAVERY    CONSTRUING  THE   CONSTITUTION.        65 

obtaining  legal  redress  against  this  perfidious  treat 
ment  of  her  colored  citizens,  by  taking  an  appeal  to 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  the  Legis 
lature  of  Massachusetts,  after  repeated  efforts  to 
induce  Southern  lawyers  to  make  the  necessary 
legal  investigations,  sent  two  of  her  own  citizens 
as  agents  to  those  cities.  Both  gentlemen  were 
expelled,  at  no  little  personal  peril,  and  the  Legis 
lature  of  South  Carolina,  glorying  in  the  act  of 
high-handed  despotism  which  the  Charleston  mob 
had  achieved,  proceeded  to  pass  a  statute  mak 
ing  it  a  penal  offence,  punishable  in  the  State 
prison,  for  an  agent  of  Massachusetts  to  enter 
that  State  in  pursuit  of  legal  redress  in  behalf 
of  her  colored  citizens. 

Thus  it  should  seem,  agreeably  to  the  prin 
ciple  laid  down  by  DANIEL  WEBSTER  himself,  that, 
if  the  fugitive  clause  in  the  Constitution  be  never 
so  binding  upon  the  North,  by  virtue  of  the  Fed 
eral  compact,  the  North  had  become  absolved  of 
all  obligation  to  respect  it  long  before  the  Fugi 
tive-Slave  Bill  was  enacted,  in  consequence  of  re 
peated  violations  of  the  compact  by  the  South. 
"  How  absurd  it  would  be  to  suppose,"  quoth 
MR.  WEBSTER,  "  when  different  parties  enter  into 
a  compact  for  certain  purposes,  that  either  can 
disregard  any  one  provision,  and  expect  the  other 
to  observe  it !  " 

But  grant  the  late  interpretation  of  this  clause 
to  be  correct,  and  grant  that  the  constitutional 
obligation  was  still  binding  when  the  Fugitive- 


66  OUR  POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

Slave  Bill  was  being  framed,  —  in  what  part  of 
the  Constitution  do  we  find  authority  for  hunting 
fugitive  slaves  at  the  public  cost  ;  for  "  magni 
fying  slave  property  above  all  other  property " 
in  the  Union ;  for  denying  the  trial  by  jury ;  for 
suspending  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus ;  and  for 
offering  a  bribe  to  the  Commissioner  to  incline 
his  decision  in  favor  of  the  kidnapper  ? 

However  men  may  differ  as  to  the  meaning 
or  scope  of  the  fugitive  clause,  or  its  permanent 
validity,  there  can  hardly  be  two  opinions  in 
reference  to  the  palpable  unconstitutionally  of 
this  bill  of  abominations,  professedly  framed  under 
its  sanction.  The  Constitution  provides  that  in 
suits  at  common  law,  when  the  value  in  contro 
versy  shall  exceed  twenty  dollars,  the  right  of 
trial  by  jury  shall  be  preserved,  yet  the  bill  in 
question,  in  a  suit  that  involves  the  total  value 
of  a  human  being,  abrogates  this  right.  The  Con 
stitution  provides  that  the  privilege  of  the  writ 
of  habeas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  unless 
when  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion  the  pub 
lic  safety  may  require  it,  yet  the  execution  of 
this  odious  bill  does  suspend  this  time-honored 
prerogative  of  free  States.  The  Constitution  was 
adopted  to  establish  justice,  and  secure  the  bless 
ings  of  liberty,  and  yet  the  Fugitive-Slave  Bill 
offers  five  dollars  to  the  Commissioner  if  he  de 
cide  in  favor  of  personal  liberty,  and  ten  dollars 
if  he  decide  in  favor  of  the  slave-hunter.  How 
can  we  doubt  that  this  was  a  statute  made,  not 


SLAVERY   CONSTRUING   THE   CONSTITUTION.        67 

in  the  spirit  of  mutual  compromise  and  comity 
between  the  States,  but  in  the  interest  of  an  ag 
gressive  oligarchy  ?  It  was  an  impudent  and 
flagrant  usurpation  of  powers  not  granted  by  the 
Constitution,  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  the 
ascendency  of  DESPOTIC  SOCIETY. 


V. 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  SUPREME  COURT. 

NOT  less  violent  and  arbitrary  was  the  construc 
tion  forced  upon  the  Constitution  in  the  dogmas 
announced  by  the  Supreme  Court  under  the 
memorable  decision  in  the  case  of  DEED  SCOTT 
v.  SANDFORD.  Those  dogmas  deny  the  power  of 
Congress  to  establish  territorial  governments, — 
pronounce  null  and  void  the  prohibition  of  slav 
ery  north  of  thirty-six  degrees  thirty  minutes, 
embodied  in  the  Missouri  Compromise,  —  and  af 
firm  that  the  status  of  slavery  attaches  to  the 
slave,  wherever  he  may  be  carried  by  his  master. 

That  these  positions  are  utterly  untenable  has 
been  ably  shown  in  the  arguments  of  the  two  dis 
senting  Judges  ;  and  it  seems  impossible  for  a  dis 
interested  person  to  examine  the  tissue  of  soph 
isms  with  which  Chief  Justice  TANEY  and  the 
associate  Judges  concurring  with  him  build  up 
their  case,  without  perceiving  that  those  opin 
ions  are  only  the  pleas  of  so  many  pettifoggers, 
pledged,  not  to  the  service  of  the  Republic,  but 
to  the  interest  of  the  slave-holders. 

These  dogmas  announced  by  the  Supreme  Court 
are  of  a  nature  which  any  man  is  competent  to 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  SUPREME  COURT.       69 

test,  who  may  take  the  trouble  to  institute  the 
necessary  research.  In  relation  to  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  Congress  over  the  Territories,  Justice 
McLEAN,  dissenting  from  the  Court,  says :  "  The 
judicial  mind  of  this  country,  State  and  Federal, 
has  agreed  on  no  subject,  within  its  legitimate  ac 
tion,  with  equal  unanimity,  as  on  the  power  of 
Congress  to  establish  Territorial  governments.  No 
court,  State  or  Federal,  no  judge  or  statesman,  is 
known  to  have  had  any  doubts  on  this  question 
for  nearly  sixty  years  after  the  power  was  exer 
cised.  Such  governments  have  been  established 
from  the  sources  of  the  Ohio  to  the  Gulf  of  Mex 
ico,  extending  to  the  lakes  on  the  north  and  the 
Pacific  Ocean  on  the  west,  and  from  the  lines  of 
Georgia  to  Texas.  Great  interests  have  grown 
up  under  the  territorial  laws  over  a  country  more 
than  five  times  greater  in  extent  than  the  original 
thirteen  States  ;  and  these  interests  —  corporate 
or  otherwise  —  have  been  cherished  and  consoli 
dated  by  a  benign  policy,  without  any  one  sup 
posing  the  law-making  power  had  united  with  the 
judiciary  —  under  the  universal  sanction  of  the 
whole  country  —  to  usurp  a  jurisdiction  which  did 
not  belong  to  them.  Such  a  discovery  at  this  late 
date  is  more  extraordinary  than  anything  which 
has  occurred  in  the  judicial  history  of  this  or  any 
other  country."  * 

So,  in  relation  to  the  alleged  illegality  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  the  Chief  Justice  and  his 

*  Reports  of  the  Supreme  Court,  Vol.  XIX.  p.  545. 


70  OUR  POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

inrlorsers  seem  to  be  equally  wide  of  the  mark. 
The  prohibition  of  slavery  north  of  thirty-six  de 
grees  thirty  minutes  and  of  the  State  of  Missouri, 
contained  in  the  act  admitting  that  State  into  the 
Union,  was  passed  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
by  a  vote  of  134  to  42.  Before  giving  his  signature 
to  the  act,  Mr.  MUNROE  submitted  it  to  his  Cabinet, 
and  they  held  the  restriction  of  slavery  in  a  Terri 
tory  to  be  within  the  constitutional  powers  of  Con- 
gross.*  Indeed,  such  power  had  been  assumed 
without  question,  as  early  as  1804,  when  Con 
gress  prohibited  the  introduction  of  slaves  into  Or 
leans  Territory  from  any  other  part  of  the  Union, 
under  the  penalty  of  freedom  to  the  slave. f 

But  in  no  dogma  announced  by  the  Chief  Jus 
tice  does  he  make  so  flagrant  an  assault  upon 
the  principles  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  as 
in  that  in  which  he  maintains  that  the  STATUS  of 
slavery  adheres  to  the  slave,  wherever  the  master 
may  convey  him,  —  in  other  words,  that  the  Con 
stitution  guarantees  protection  to  property  in 
slaves,  as  to  all  other  property,  wherever  Us  au 
thority  is  acknowledged. 

The  extraordinary  nature  of  this  assumption 
will  be  appreciated  at  a  glance,  when  we  consider 
the  undisputed  fact,  that  the  state  of  slavery  has 
been  viewed  —  for  almost  a  century  past,  by  the 
courts  of  England,  America,  and  all  other  civil 
ized  nations  —  as  a  mere  municipal  regulation, 

*  Reports  of  the  Supreme  Court,  Vol.  XIX.  p.  646. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  544. 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  SUPREME  COURT.      71 

founded  upon,  and  limited  to  the  range  of,  the 
local  laws  by  which  it  was  established.* 

Now  if  slavery  be  limited  to  the  range  of  the 
local  laws  especially  ordained  for  its  support, — 
which  is  the  unanimous  doctrine  of  the  jurists  in 
all  countries,  —  "how  can  the  slave" — in  the 
language  of  Justice  McLEAN  — "  be  coerced  to 
serve  in  a  State  or  Territory,  not  only  without  the 
authority  of  law,  but  against  its  express  provis 
ions  ?  What  gives  the  master  the  right  to  con 
trol  the  will  of  his  slave  ?  The  local  law,  which 
exists  in  some  form.  But  where  there  is  no  such 
law,  can  the  master  control  the  will  of  the  slave 
by  force  ?  Where  no  slavery  exists,  the  presump 
tion,  without  regard  to  color,  is  in  favor  of  free 
dom.  Under  such  a  jurisdiction,  may  the  colored 
man  be  levied  on  as  the  property  of  his  master  by 
a  creditor?  On  the  decease  of  the  master,  does 
the  slave  descend  to  his  heirs  as  property  ?  Can 
the  master  sell  him  ?  Any  one  or  all  of  these  acts 
may  be  done  to  the  slave  where  he  is  legally  held 
to  service.  But  where  the  law  does  not  confer 
this  power,  it  cannot  be  exercised.  LORD  MANS 
FIELD  held  that  a  slave  brought  into  England  was 
free.  LORD  STOWELL  agreed  with  LORD  MANSFIELD 
in  this  respect,  and  that  the  slave  could  not  be  co 
erced  in  England By  virtue  of  what  law  is 

it,  that  a  master  may  take  his  slave  into  free  terri 
tory,  and  exact  from  him  the  duties  of  a  slave  ? 
The  law  of  the  territory  does  not  sanction  it.  No 

*  Reports  of  the  Supreme  Court,  Vol.  XIX.  p.  647. 


72  OUR   POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

authority  can  be  claimed  under  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  or  any  law  of  Congress. 
Will  it  be  said  that  the  slave  is  taken  as  property, 
—  the  same  as  other  property  which  the  master 
may  own  ?  To  this  I  answer,  that  colored  persons 
are  made  property  by  the  law  of  the  State,  and  no 
such  power  has  been  given  to  Congress." ' 

It  is  worthy  of  note,  that  every  other  descrip 
tion  of  property  which  a  man  might  bring  to  Eng 
land  from  one  of  her  slave  islands  was  protected 
by  law.  The  property  in  the  slave  was  not  pro 
tected,  because  there  was  no  law  in  England  that 
recognized  slavery.  How  clearly  this  shows  "  that 
property  in  a  human  being  does  not  arise  from 
nature,  or  from  the  common  law,"  but,  in  the  lan 
guage  of  the  courts,  is  a  "  mere  municipal  regula 
tion,"  having  no  other  authority  than  the  local 
laws  especially  instituted  to  protect  it ! 

In  this  amazing  effort  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  the 
United  States  to  pervert  the  Federal  Constitution 
into  a  virtual  slave-code,  extending  its  infamous 
sanctions  over  the  entire  republic,  —  the  wicked 
audacity  of  the  slave  propaganda  was  thought  to 
have  culminated.  In  that  decision,  the  long  series 
of  usurpations  against  liberty  —  the  long  succes 
sion  of  arrogant  and  tyrannical  concessions,  ex 
torted  from  free  society  —  seemed  to  receive  an 
ominous  consummation. 

*  Reports  of  the  Supreme  Court,  Vol.  XIX.  p.  648. 


VI. 

SLAVERY  SUBDUING  THE  CHURCH. 

THE  account  we  have  undertaken  to  give  of  our 
national  apostasy  would  be  incomplete,  without  a 
notice  of  the  change  that  took  place  in  the  senti 
ment  of  the  Church,  as  regards  the  sinfulness  of 
slave-holding,  and  its  growing  toleration  and  ap 
proval  of  the  practice. 

The  views  that  characterized  a  great  majority  of 
our  statesmen  in  the  Revolutionary  period  may 
fairly  be  said  to  have  honored  also  the  leading 
clergy.  It  has  been  even  supposed  that  the  de 
cided  anti-slavery  sentiments  of  WASHINGTON,  JEF 
FERSON,  FRANKLIN,  and  others,  may  be  traced  to 
the  influence  of  DR.  HOPKINS  whose  celebrated 
"  Dialogue"  was  published  in  1776,  and  to  that  of 
DR.  JONATHAN  EDWARDS  of  New  Haven  (after 
wards  President  of  Union  College,  Schenectady), 
who  preached  a  powerful  sermon  before  the  Con 
necticut  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Freedom,  in 
1791.  The  work  of  DR.  HOPKINS  was  circulated 
extensively  during  the  Revolutionary  period,  "  and 
is  known  to  have  produced  a  powerful  impression 
upon  the  minds  of  reflecting  men,  including  some 
in  high  stations."  The  boldness  and  pungency  of 

4 


74  OUR   POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

DR.  EDWARDS'S  sermon  may  be  conceived  by  the 
fact,  that  he  "  distinctly  charges  upon  the  slave 
holder  the  crime  of  man-stealing,  and  the  repeti 
tion  of  the  crime  every  day  he  continues  to  hold  a 
slave  in  bondage.  He  charges  him  also  with  '  theft 
or  robbery,'  —  nay,  with  i  a  greater  crime  than  for 
nication,  theft,  or  robbery.'  He  predicts  that,  if 
we  may  judge  the  future  by  the  past,  within  fifty 
years  from  this  time  it  will  be  as  shameful  for  a 
man  to  hold  a  negro  slave,  as  to  be  guilty  of  com 
mon  robbery  or  theft !  In  an  appendix,  DR.  ED 
WARDS  answers  objections  against  immediate  eman 
cipation,  just  as  modern  Abolitionists  answer  them 
now."* 

The  character  of  these  publications,  and  the 
favorable  reception  they  met  with  from  the  pub 
lic,  indicate  beyond  controversy  the  position  of 
the  CHURCH,  at  that  time,  toward  American  slav 
ery.  The  doctrine  of  Abolition  was  unquestion 
ably  in  the  ascendant. 

The  sentiments  of  the  Methodist  societies,  at 
that  time,  were  expressed  both  in  the  well-known 
opinions  of  WESLEY  and  in  the  minutes  of  the 
Conference  for  the  year  1780.  "  The  Conference 
acknowledges  that  slavery  is  contrary  to  the  laws 
of  God,  man,  and  nature,  —  hurtful  to  society,  — 
contrary  to  the  dictates  of  conscience  and  pure 

religion, and  they  pass  their  disapprobation 

upon  all  our  friends  who  keep  slaves,  and  they 

*  Goodell's  "  Slavery  and  Anti- Slavery,"  pp.  92,  93. 


SLAVERY   SUBDUING   THE   CHURCH.  75 

advise  their  freedom."  *  In  1785,  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  held  this  language :  "  We  hold 
in  the  deepest  abhorrence  the  practice  of  slavery, 
and  shall  not  cease  to  seek  its  destruction,  by  all 
wise  and  prudent  means."  Similar  sentiments 
were  held  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Pres 
byterian  Church,  and  by  the  Baptist  denomina 
tion. 

The  story  of  the  subsequent  decline  of  this 
righteous  sentiment  in  the  Church  —  the  story 
of  its  toleration  of  slave-holding,  of  its  acquies 
cence  in  all  the  practices  which  it  involves,  of  its 
final  approbation  of  the  system,  and  its  open  as 
saults  upon  the  few  surviving  sons  of  Liberty  — 
will  comprise,  in  coming  time,  the  most  dishonor 
able  chapter  of  our  annals,  and  will  rank  among 
the  most  dubious  records  of  Christian  history. 
We  shall  cite  such  facts  in  this  section  of  the 
essay  —  from  the  proceedings  of  different  ecclesi 
astical  bodies  —  as  we  deem  needful  to  convey  an 
accurate  impression  of  this  melancholy  declension, 
—  not  exhausting  the  materials  we  have  collected, 
but  culling  from  them  as  copiously  as  our  limits 
admit. 

We  will  first  notice  the  declension  of  Christian 
sentiment  in  the  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH. 
In  1801,  the  General  Conference  declared,  "  We 
are  more  than  ever  convinced  of  the  great  evil  of 
African  slavery,  which  still  exists  in  these  United 

*  Sunderland's  Anti-Slavery  Manual,  p.  58. 


76  OUR   POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

States."  In  1836,  the  same  Conference  declared 
that  they  "  wholly  disclaim  any  right,  WISH,,  or 
intention,  to  interfere  with  the  civil  and  political 
relation  of  master  and  slave,  as  it  exists  in  the 
slave-holding  States  of  this  Union." 

This  is  about  as  complete  a  somerset  of  opin 
ion  as  we  could  expect  an  ecclesiastical  body  to 
execute  in  thirty-five  years';  but  here  is  another 
equally  dexterous. 

In  179T,  the  General  Conference  had  required 
its  preachers  to  memorialize  their  legislatures  in 
favor  of  Abolition.  But  in  the  Pastoral  Address 
issued  in  1836,  the  same  Conference,  dissuading- 
their  members  from  agitating  the  subject,  inform 
them  that  "  The  question  of  slavery  in  the  Unit 
ed  States,  by  the  constitutional  compact  which 
binds  us  together  as  a  nation,  is  left  to  be  regu 
lated  by  the  several  State  legislatures  themselves ; 
and  thereby  is  put  beyond  the  control  of  the  gen 
eral  government,  as  well  as  of  all  ecclesiastical 
bodies"  &c.  The  Conference  omits  to  mention 
what  "  constitutional  compact "  had  been  formed 
since  1797,  when  the  ministry  were  expressly  re 
quired  to  use  their  influence  against  slavery.  It 
also  neglects  to  explain  ivhy —  if  the  responsibility 
of  maintaining  slavery  rests  with  the  State  legis 
latures  —  it  has  ceased  to  be  proper  to  memorial 
ize  them  on  the  subject.  In  1785,  this  Church 
"  held  in  the  deepest  abhorrence  the  practice  of 
slavery,"  and  were  resolved  "  not  to  cease  to  seek 
its  destruction "  ;  but  in  1836  they  disclaim  the 


SLAVERY  SUBDUING   THE   CHURCH.  77 

right,   the   wish,   and  the   intention   to   interfere 
with  it. 

In  1839,  Bishop  SOULE,  at  the  Pittsburg  Con 
ference,  declared,  "  I  have  never  yet  advised  the 
liberation  of  a  slave,  and  think  I  never  shall."  In 
1838,  "  Bishop  HEDDING,  presiding  at  the  New 
England  Conference,  refused  to  put  resolutions 
condemning  the  buying  and  selling  of  slaves,  and 
at  the  same  time  refused  to  put  a  motion  declar 
ing  slavery  to  be  a  moral  evil."  * 

The  Book  Concern  owned  by  this  denomination, 
"  up  to  the  division  which  followed  the  General 
Conference  of  1844,  published  books  for  the  whole 
connection,  North  and  South ;  hence,  in  the  re- 
publication  of  English  works  which  have  con 
tained  allusions  to  slavery,  various  expedients  were 
resorted  to  to  render  them  acceptable  to  slave 
holders.  Sometimes  the  anti-slavery  matter  is 
said  to  have  been  expunged  ;  and  in  other  cases 
it  has  been  attempted  to  explain  it  away  by  notes 
appended  by  the  American  Book-room  editor."  f 

Soon  after  the  secession  of  the  Wesleyan  mem 
bers  of  this  Church,  on  account  of  its  approbation 
of  slavery,  a  division  took  place  between  its  North 
ern  and  Southern  sections.  "  The  action  of  the 
General  Conference  which  led  to  the  separation 
was  not  against  slavery  or  slave-holding  by  the 
membership  or  ministers,  but  simply  against  slave- 
holding  by  the  Episcopacy  ;  and  that  not  upon 

*  Goodell's  "  Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery,"  pp.  144-148. 
t  True  Wesleyan,  January  24,  1852. 


78  OUR  POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

principle,  but  wholly  upon  the  ground  of  expe 
diency."  The  rupture,  moreover,  "  did  not  throw 
all  the  slave  States  into  the  Southern  General  Con 
ference.  Official  documents  show  that  there  are 
at  the  present  time  in  the  Northern  General  Con 
ference  eight  annual  conferences  a  part  or  the 
whole  of  whose  territory  is  in  the  slave-holding 
States.  There  are  many  slave-holding  preachers 
in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  it  ordains 
slave-holders  to  the  ministry.  It  is  computed 
that  there  are  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
North  not  less  than  four  thousand  slave-holders, 
and  twenty-seven  thousand  slaves." 

The  quotation  is  from  the  Annual  Report  of  the 
American  and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery  Society  for 
1850.  It  is  proper  to  add,  that  in  1849  and  1850 
there  seems  to  have  been  a  revival  of  anti-slavery 
sentiment,  or  at  least  of  anti-slavery  action,  in  the 
Northern  branch  of  this  Church,  —  judging  by 
certain  resolutions  then  adopted,  which  denounce 
slavery  in  severe  terms,  and  conclude  by  affirming 
"  that  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  mankind 
require  the  exclusion  of  slave-holders  from  the 
Christian  Church." 

We  next  notice  the  declension  of  Christian  sen 
timent  in  the  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH.  In  1794  this 
Church  had  denounced  slave-holding  as  "  man- 
stealing."  "  In  1815  the  General  Assembly  de 
clared  their  <  approbation  of  the  principles  of  civil 
liberty,'  and  their  <  deep  concern  at  any  vestiges  of 


SLAVERY  SUBDUING  THE  CHURCH.       79 

slavery  which  may  remain  in  our  country.'  Tliis 
is  theory.  In  practice,  they  urge  the  lower  judica 
tures  to  prepare  the  young  slaves  '  for  the  exercise 
of  liberty  when  God,  in  his  providence,  shall  open 
a  door  for  emancipation'  This  recommendation  is 
an  implied  permission  to  their  slave-holding  mem 
bers  to  dismiss  all  thoughts  of  emancipation  at 
present,  waiting  for  some  colonization  opening,  or 
some  undefined  providence  of  God."  In  1816  the 
General  Assembly  allude  to  slavery  as  "  a  mourn 
ful  evil " ;  but  at  the  same  time  they  discreetly 
erase  their  note  to  the  eighth  commandment,  in 
which,  in  1794,  they  had  stigmatized  slave-holding 
as  "  man-stealing." 

In  1818  this  General  Assembly,  under  a  some 
what  notable  impulse  of  moral  courage,  issued  an 
"  expression  of  views,"  in  which  slavery  is  called 
"  a  gross  violation  of  the  most  precious  and  sacred 
rights  of  human  nature,  utterly  inconsistent  with  the 
law  of  God,  which  requires  us  to  love  our  neigh 
bor  as  ourselves,  and  totally  irreconcilable  with 
the  spirit  and  principles  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ, 
which  enjoins  that  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  also  to  them." 

This  was  a  promising  commencement ;  but  how 
"lame  and  impotent"  the  "conclusion"!  "In 
stead  of  requiring  the  instant  abandonment  of  this 
gross  violation  of  rights,  <fec.,  the  Assembly  exhorts 
the  violators  to  '  continue  and  increase  their  exer 
tions  to  effect  a  total  abolition  of  slavery,  with  no 
greater  delay  than  a  regard  to  the  public  welfare 


80  OUR  POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

demands ' !  "  *  Here  observe,  the  persons  who  are 
convicted  of  "  a  gross  violation  of  the  most  precious 
and  sacred  rights  of  human  nature,"  are  gravely 
advised  to  "  increase  their  exertions "  to  cease 
from  their  sin,  "  with  no  greater  delay  than  a  re 
gard  for  the  public  welfare  demands  "  !  How  long 
the  public  welfare  may  require  a  persistence  in 
this  "  gross  violation "  of  human  rights,  the  As 
sembly  does  not  presume  to  decide. 

It  proceeds,  however,  to  recommend  that,  "  if  a 
Christian  professor  shall  sell  a  slave  who  is  also  in 
communion  with  our  Church,"  without  the  slave's 
consent,  he  "  should  be  suspended  till  he  should 
repent  and  make  reparation  "  !  f  Observe  here 
that  no  penalty  is  annexed  to  the  selling  of  a  slave, 
even  though  "  in  communion  with  our  Church,"  if 
the  slave  makes  no  objection  ;  and  if  the  slave  be 
not  "  in  communion  with  our  Church,"  he  may 
be  sold,  willing  or  unwilling,  and  the  dealer  in 
human  flesh  incur  not  even  ecclesiastical  censure  ! 

In  order  to  see  what  effect  this  "  expression  of 
views  "  had  in  mitigating  the  cruelties  of  slavery, 
we  have  only  to  look  into  a  "  Report "  on  the  sub 
ject  adopted  by  the  Synod  of  Kentucky  in  1834. 
Alluding  to  the  horrors  of  the  domestic  slave- 
trade,  and  to  the  forcible  separation  of  families, 
the  Report  says :  — 

"  These  acts  are  daily  occurring  in  the  midst  of 
us."  "  There  is  not  a  village  or  road  that  does  not 

*  Goodell.     American  Churches,  &c.,  by  J.  G.  Birney. 
t  Birney's  American  Churches. 


SLAVERY  SUBDUING  THE  CHURCH.       81 

behold  the  sad  procession  of  manacled  outcasts, 
whose  chains  and  mournful  countenances  tell  that 
they  are  exiled  by  force  from  all  that  their  hearts 
hold  dear.  Our  Church,  years  ago,  raised  its  voice 
of  solemn  warning  against  this  flagrant  violation 
of  every  principle  of  mercy,  justice,  and  humanity. 
Yet  we  blush  to  announce  to  you  that  this  warn 
ing  has  been  often  disregarded,  even  by  those  who 
hold  to  our  communion.  Cases  have  occurred  in 
our  own  denomination  where  professors  of  the  re 
ligion  of  mercy  HAVE  TORN  THE  MOTHER  FROM  THE 
CHILDREN,  and  sent  her  into  a  merciless  and  return- 
less  exile.  Yet  acts  of  discipline  have  rarely  fol 
lowed  such  conduct." 

One  would  naturally  suppose  that  the  knowl 
edge  of  such  terrible  crimes,  committed  in  the 
very  bosom  of  the  Church,  would  have  stimulated 
measures  leading  to  some  reform  ;  but  nothing  of 
the  kind  took  place.  Mr.  Birney,  formerly  a  resi 
dent  of  Kentucky,  assures  us  that  no  act  of  disci 
pline  was  ever  applied  to  such  offences.  The 
Synod  of  Kentucky,  with  the  fullest  knowledge 
of  these  dreadful  facts,  have  remained  opposed  to 
the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery  ;  and  the  only 
minister  within  their  limits  who  ventured  to  pro 
pose  unconditional  emancipation  was  banished 
from  their  edifying  society. 

In  1835,  a  ruling  elder  in  this  Church,  MR. 
STEWART  of  Illinois,  in  urging  some  anti-slavery 
action  upon  the  General  Assembly,  said  :  "In  this 
Church  a  man  may  take  a  freeborn  child,  force  it 

4*  F 


82  OUR   POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

away  from  its  parents,  to  whom  God  gave  it  in 
charge,  saying,  '  Bring  it  up  for  me,'  and  sell  it  as 
a  beast,  or  hold  it  in  perpetual  bondage,  and  not 
only  escape  corporal  punishment,  but  really  be  es 
teemed  an  excellent  Christian.  Nay,  even  minis 
ters  of  the  Gospel  and  Doctors  of  Divinity  may 
engage  in  this  unholy  traffic,  and  yet  sustain  their 
high  and  holy  calling."  "  Elders,  ministers,  and 
Doctors  of  Divinity  are,  with  both  hands,  engaged 
in  the  practice  !  "  * 

Will  it  be  credited,  that,  while  no  one  ventured 
to  call  in  question  the  facts  here  stated,  the  actors 
were  neither  punished,  nor  was  anything  done  to 
abate  these  monstrous  offences  !  On  the  contrary, 
from  that  day  the  sentiment  of  the  Church  be 
came,  if  possible,  more  depraved.  From  a  tolera 
tion  of  the  system  involving  these  odious  crimes, 
the  Church  lapsed  into  an  open  defence  of  slave- 
holding,  and  perverted  the  Bible  in  its  scandalous 
zeal  for  this  great  iniquity. 

After  the  division  of  the  General  Assembly  in 
1838,  both  the  Old  School  and  the  New  remained 
faithful  to  the  slave-holders.  This  is  demonstrated 
by  the  fact  that,  so  late  as  1850,  the  New  School 
"  unanimously  "  declared  itself,  u  before  God  and 
the  world,"  "  ready  to  commune  with  the  Old 
School,!  at  a  time  when  the  great  body  of  Old- 
School  Presbyterians  at  the  South  were  zealous 
for  the  extension  of  slavery,  demanded  of  the 

*  Quoted  on  the  authority  of  William  Goodell,  p.  153. 
t  New  York  Observer,  June  15,  1850. 


SLAVERY  SUBDUING  THE  CHURCH.       83 

Federal  Government  its  extension  as  an  act  of 
justice,  and  defended  it  as  a  Bible  institution."  * 

We  pass  on  to  the  ORTHODOX  CONGREGATIONAL- 
IST  CHURCHES.  Although  this  denomination  has 
furnished  several  brilliant  and  earnest  opponents 
of  slavery,  and  although  our  late  political  reaction 
was  greatly  stimulated  by  the  influence  of  "both  its 
clergy  and  laity,  its  general  tendency  has  been  in 
the  direction  of  subserviency  and  compromise. 
Its  affinity  for  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  the 
familiar  intercourse  subsisting  between  the  two 
sects,  indicate  that  their  feelings  have  not  been 
very  dissimilar  as  regards  the  subject  under  con 
sideration.  We  had  collected  considerable  docu 
mentary  evidence  showing  the  guarded  and  equiv 
ocal  language  in  which  Congregationalists  have 
been  accustomed  to  allude  to  this  "  delicate  sub 
ject,"  but  we  have  not  space  to  admit  the  cita 
tions.  The  well-known  pro-slavery  views  of  PRO 
FESSOR  STUART  of  Andover,  of  DR.  WOODS,  DR. 
DANA,  and  others,  and  the  notorious  fact  that  the 
Fugitive-Slave  Bill  had  many  zealous  advocates 
among  Congregationalists,  serve  to  show  that  the 
influence  of  this  branch  of  our  ecclesiasticism  has 
been  exerted  in  favor  of  slavery,  rather  than 
against  it. 

No  denomination  has  gone  farther  in  the  de 
fence  of  slave-holding  than  the  BAPTIST.  In  rela- 

*  Goodell,  p.  161. 


84  OUR  POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

tion  to  the  views  of  Southern  Baptists,  let  tho 
following  sentences  testify,  extracted  from  a  me 
morial  of  the  Charleston  Baptist  Association  to 
the  Legislature  of  South  Carolina,  in  1835  :  "  The 
said  Association  does  not  consider  that  the  Holy 
Scriptures  have  made  the  fact  of  slavery  a  ques 
tion  of  morals  at  all.  The  Divine  Author  of  our 
holy  religion,  in  particular,  found  slavery  a  part 
of  the  existing  institutions  of  society,  with  which, 
if  not  sinful,  it  was  not  his  design  to  intermeddle, 
but  to  leave  them  entirely  to  the  control  of  men. 
Adopting  it,  therefore,  as  one  of  the  allowed  rela 
tions  of  society,  he  made  it  the  province  of  his  re 
ligion  only  to  prescribe  the  reciprocal  duties  of  the 
relation.  The  question,  it  is  believed,  is  purely 
one  of  political  economy,"  etci  The  Association'! 
proceeds  to  claim  for  South  Carolina  the  right  to 
"  regulate  the  existence  and  continuance  of  skv- 
ery  within  her  territorial  limits,"  and  adds  :  "  We 
would  resist  to  the  utmost  every  invasion  of  this 
right,  come  from  what  quarter  and  under  what 
ever  pretence  it  may." 

How  many  ages  would  it  require  to  procure  the 
peaceful  abolition  of  slavery,  in  a  State  where  the 
Christian  religion  is  thus  invoked  to  protect  it  as 
one  of  the  natural  institutions  of  society,  and 
where  the  churches  themselves  are  pledged  to 
resist  every  invasion  whatsoever  of  the  alleged 
right  ?  And  in  what  way  could  "  the  providence 
of  God  open  a  door  for  emancipation,"  among 
such  a  people,  except  through  the  horrors  of  a 


SLAVERY  SUBDUING  THE  CHURCH.       85 

servile  insurrection,  or  by  the  mandate  of  Federal 
authority  ? 

In  1833,  the  KEY.  DR.  FURMAN  edified  the  Gov 
ernor  of  South  Carolina  with  an  exposition  of  the 
"  Views  of  Baptists  "  on  the  peculiar  institution, 
in  which  he  said :  "  The  right  of  holding  slaves  is 
clearly  established  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  both  by 
precept  and  example."  The  precept  and  example 
of  this  reverend  Doctor  certainly  coincided,  for 
when  his  effects  came  to  be  advertised  for  sale, 
on  his  decease,  among  the  articles  enumerated 
were  "  TWENTY-SEVEN  NEGROES,  some  of  them  very 
prime." 

How  far  the  Baptists  of  the  North  are  responsi 
ble  for  such  sentiments  will  appear  by  the  follow 
ing  remark,  made  in  1834,  by  the  late  REV.  Lucius 
BOLLES,  D.  D.,  of  Massachusetts,  Corresponding 
A  Secretary  of  the  American  Baptist  Board  for  For 
eign  Missions :  "  There  is  a  pleasing  degree  of 
union  among  the  multiplying  thousands  of  Bap 
tists  throughout  the  land Our  Southern 

brethren  are  generally,  both  ministers  and  people, 
slave-holders."*  Such  were  the  people  who,  delib 
erately  fostering  the  most  dreadful  condition  of 
heathenism  at  home,  made  a  merit  of  preaching 
their  pro-slavery  religion  to  the  heathen  abroad. 

"We  must  hasten  through  these  scandalous  rec 
ords.  The  prevailing  course  of  the  PROTESTANT 
EPISCOPAL  CHURCH,  with  respect  to  slavery,  has 

*  Birney's  American  Churches. 


86  OUR  POLITICAL  APOSTASY. 

been  indicated  by  JOHN  JAY,  ESQ.  (himself  an 
Episcopalian),  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  "Thoughts 
on  the  Duty  of  the  Episcopal  Church,"  &c.  "  She 
has,"  observes  MR.  JAY,  "  not  merely  remained  a 
mute  and  careless  spectator  of  this  great  conflict 
of  truth  and  justice  with  hypocrisy  and  cruelty, 
but  her  very  priests  and  deacons  may  be  seen 
ministering  at  the  altar  of  slavery,  —  offering  their 
talents  and  influence  at  its  unholy  shrine,  and 
openly  repeating  the  awful  blasphemy,  that  the 
precepts  of  our  Saviour  sanction  the  system  of 
American  slavery.  Her  Northern  (free  State) 
clergy,  with  rare  exceptions,  whatever  they  may 
feel  on  the  subject,  rebuke  it  neither  in  public  nor 
in  private  ;  and  her  periodicals,  far  from  advancing 
the  progress  of  abolition,  at  times  oppose  our 
societies,  impliedly  defending  slavery,  as  not  in 
compatible  with  Christianity,  and  occasionally 
withholding  information  useful  to  the  cause  of 
freedom." 

"  In  1836,  a  clergyman  of  North  Carolina,  of 
the  name  of  FREEMAN,  preached  in  presence  of  his 
bishop  (REV.  LEVI  S.  IVES,  D.  D.,  a  native  of  a  free 
State)  two  sermons,  on  the  rights  and  duties  of 
slave-holders.  In  these  he  essayed  to  justify,  from 
the  Bible,  the  slavery  of  both  white  men  and  ne 
groes,  and  insisted  that,  '  without  a  new  revelation 
from  Heaven,  no  man  was  authorized  to  pronounce 
slavery  wrong.'  The  two  sermons  were  printed  in 
a  pamphlet,  prefaced  with  a  letter  to  MR.  FREEMAN 

*  Birney's  American  Churches,  pp.  39,  40. 


SLAVERY  SUBDUING  THE  CHURCH.       87 

from  the  Bishop  of  North  Carolina,  declaring  that 
he  '  had  listened  with  most  unfeigned  pleasure  '  to 
his  discourses,  and  advised  their  publication  as 
being  '  urgently  called  for  at  the  present  time.' ' 

The  position  of  the  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 
in  this  country,  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  is  no 
more  honorable  than  that  of  the  sects  we  have 
mentioned.  Its  general  practice  has  been  to  ignore 
our  national  sin  at  the  North,  and  to  sanction  the 
practice  of  slaveholding  among  its  members  at  the 
South.  DR.  0.  A.  BROWNSON —  hitherto  known  as 
an  apologist  for  slavery  —  has  recently  published 
an  able  argument  for  immediate  emancipation  ;  * 
but  we  notice  that  the  New  York  Metropolitan, 
which  is  understood  to  be  the  organ  of  ARCH 
BISHOP  HUGHES,  repudiates  the  sentiments  of  MR. 
BROWNSON,  and  reiterates  some  of  the  stalest  char 
ges  that  have  been  made  against  the  Abolitionists. 

Among  UNIVERSALISTS  and  UNITARIANS  there  has 
been,  we  incline  to  believe,  a  stronger  anti-slavery 
sentiment,  and  a  more  general  agitation  of  the 
great  question,  than  among  the  older  sects.  This 
may  be  due,  in  part,  to  the  fact  that  these  denomi 
nations  have  few  churches  located  at  the  South, 
and  also  to  the  more  vital  spiritual  life  which  is 
apt  to  distinguish  the  more  recent  religious  organ 
izations.  Some  of  the  ablest  advocates  of  emanci- 

*  Birney,  p.  41. 

t  Brownson's  Quarterly  Review,  Oct.,  1861. 


88  OUR  POLITICAL   APOSTASY. 

pation  belong  to  these  sects  ;  and  their  various 
ecclesiastical  bodies  have  adopted,  on  different 
occasions,  resolutions  strongly  condemnatory  of 
the  sin  of  slavery.  Still,  we  question  whether  the 
influence  of  the  two  denominations,  in  the  aggre 
gate,  has  been  hostile  to  the  great  sin  of  the 
Republic.  We  rather  fear  that,  like  the  older 
sects,  they  have  done  more  to  countenance  the 
pro-slavery  policy  of  the  country,  than  to  create  a 
regenerating  public  opinion. 

As  regards  the  action  of  the  smaller  and  less 
influential  sects  on  the  subject,  we  are  not  so 
accurately  informed.  The  QUAKERS  are  popularly 
reputed  an  anti-slavery  sect,  but  it  is  a  debatable 
point  how  far  they  are  entitled  to  the  merit. 

In  reviewing  the  attitude  of  the  Churches  at 
large  toward  this  vitally  important  issue,  the  con 
clusion  is  depressing  in  the  extreme.  To  reflect 
that,  in  the  most  momentous  debate  ever  raised 
in  the  mind  of  a  Christian  nation,  the  Church 
actually  arrayed  herself  on  the  side  of  oppression 
and  barbarism,  ignoring  the  dictates  of  justice 
and  suppressing  the  instincts  of  piety,  turning 
her  back  to  the  claims  of  freedom,  and  making 
herself  deaf  to  the  cry  of  the  poor  and  needy, 
presents  a  moral  and  mental  anomaly  that  may 
well  distress  the  saint  and  perplex  the  philoso 
pher. 

DR.  ALBERT  BARNES,  a  man  whose  judgment 


SLAVERY  SUBDUING   THE   CHURCH.  89 

is  entitled  to  respect,  said :  "  There  is  no  power 
out  of  the  Church  that  could  sustain  slavery  an 
hour,  if  it  were  not  sustained  in  it."  This  con 
fession  justifies  all  that  the  radical  Abolitionists 
have  charged,  in  their  familiar  assertion  that  the 
American  Church  has  become  the  bulwark  of 
American  slavery.  We  do  not  forget,  of  course, 
that  there  were  some  faithful  witnesses  in  all  the 
Churches,  during  those  dark  days  of  ecclesiasti 
cal  infidelity ;  or  that  the  pious  abhorrence  of 
slavery  which  had  characterized  HOPKINS  and  ED 
WARDS  and  WESLEY  was  ever  entirely  suppressed. 
We  speak  of  the  general  influence  and  tendency 
of  the  Church,  as  evinced  in  its  ecclesiastical  de 
cisions,  in  the  failure  of  its  discipline  to  take 
cognizance  of  the  glaring  iniquities  of  slave-hold 
ing,  and  in  its  efforts  to  discourage  that  free  dis 
cussion  of  the  subject,  which  alone  could  lead  to 
a  peaceful  abrogation  of  the  wrong.  In  all  these 
respects,  the  guilt  of  the  Church  stands  forth  in 
fearful  prominence,  and  we  know  of  no  consid 
eration  that  can  essentially  palliate  it.  We  have 
reproduced  these  odious  facts  with  reluctance  and 
pain,  out  of  no  desire  to  damage  the  Church,  but 
because  a  greater  interest  than  the  welfare  of  the 
Church  appeared  to  demand  it,  —  the  interest  of 
our  country  and  of  humanity,  to  which  our  ecclesi 
astical  orders  have  been  notoriously  unfaithful. 

"  Just  God,  and  holy ! 
Is  that  Church  which  lends 
Strength  to  the  spoiler,  Thine?  " 


VII. 

APPARENT  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  DESPOTIC  SYSTEM. 

THE  subjugation  of  the  Church  may  be  esteemed 
the  crowning  evidence  of  the  submission  of  the 
country  to  the  DESPOTIC  SYSTEM.  By  gradual 
stages  at  the  beginning,  by  monstrous  strides  of 
aggression  in  later  years,  the  alien  principle  now 
appeared  supreme. 

Since  the  acquisition  of  Missouri  it  had  scarcely 
affected  to  disguise  its  purposes.  Its  native  im 
pudence  sprouted  luxuriantly  in  the  broad  sun 
of  Federal  patronage.  The  manners  of  the  plan 
tation  despot  began  to  be  transferred  to  the  floor 
of  Congress.  Virgin  States,  each  of  them  am 
ple  enough  for  an  empire,  were  transferred  from 
the  aboriginal  freemen,  and  laid  at  the  feet  of 
the  hungry  despotism.  Under  the  genial  lead 
ership  of  CALHOUN,  and  in  the  name  of  the 
specious  sophism  of  "  State  Rights,"  the  latent 
insubordination  of  the  oligarchy  to  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land  was  proclaimed  in  South  Caro 
lina.  The  endless  perpetuity  of  slavery  was  an 
nounced  by  HENRY  CLAY.  The  Church  was 
cowed  into  the  decision  that  pronounced  slavery 


APPARENT  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  DESPOTIC  SYSTEM.       91 

a  divine  institution,  and  solemnly  consecrated  its 
crimes. 

Since  slavery  was  to  be  perpetual,  and  since 
it  had  become  divine,  it  was  time  to  make  it  a 
national  institution.  By  an  act  of  Congress,  ac 
cordingly,  the  entire  free  North  was  made  a  hunt 
ing-ground  for  the  recovery  of  fugitives.  The 
old  Missouri  landmark  was  blotted  out,  that  the 
petted  system  might  spread  into  the  Northwest. 
The  domestic  slave-trade,  in  some  of  its  features 
more  revolting  than  the  foreign  traffic,  had  been 
under  the  patronage,  and  within  the  control,  of 
the  Federal  Government,  almost  from  the  begin 
ning.*  MR.  BUCHANAN  was  carried  into  the  Presi 
dency,  sworn  and  consecrated  to  the  pro-slavery 
policy  to  crown  the  culminating  succession  of  ex 
ecutive  baseness.  The  Supreme  Court,  as  we 
have  seen,  breaking  over  all  legal  precedents  and 
perverting  our  most  glorious  traditions,  under7 
took  to  legalize  the  tenure  of  property  in  man, 
in  every  part  of  the  Republic. 

Can  it  be  esteemed  surprising  that  sagacious 
men  began  to  inquire  —  in  view  of  the  general 
apostasy  of  the  nation  —  whether  God  reigns  in  this 
world,  or  the  Devil  ?  But  the  wisest  men  became 
reassured.  They  saw  that  Divine  causes  were 
operating  in  the  land  that  must  eventuate  in 
Divine  effects,  —  that  the  laws  ordained  by  Eter 
nal  Justice,  and  running  through  the  nature  of 

*  See  Goodell,  pp.  243-262.  Compare  Jay's  "Inquiry,"  Part  II. 
Chap.  V. 


92  OUR  rOLITJCAL  APOSTASY. 

man  and  the  polity  of  states,  cannot  be  perma 
nently  resisted,  but  vindicate  themselves  even 
through  the  very  folly  and  depravity  that  would 
override  them. 


PART    III. 

OUR  POLITICAL   REGENERATION 


"  We  have  offended,  0  my  countrymen ! 
We  have  offended  very  grievously, 
And  been  most  tyrannous.    From  east  to  west, 
A  groan  of  accusation  pierces  Heaven ! 
The  wretched  plead  against  us ;  multitudes, 
Countless  and  vehement,  the  sons  of  God, 

Our  brethren ! " 

COLERIDGE. 

"  It  is  not  madness 

That  I  have  uttered For  love  of  grace 

Lay  not  that  flattering  unction  to  your  soul, 
That  not  your  trespass,  but  my  madness  speaks : 
It  will  but  skin  and  film  the  ulcerous  place ; 
While  rank  corruption,  mining  all  within, 
Infects  unseen.     Confess  yourself  to  Heaven; 
Repent  what 's  past ;  avoid  what  is  to  come ; 
And  do  not  spread  the  compost  on  the  weeds, 

To  make  them  ranker." 

HAMLET. 


"  0  Truth !  0  Freedom !  how  are  ye  still  born 

In  the  rude  stable,  in  the  manger  nursed ! 
What  humble  hands  unbar  those  gates  of  morn, 
Through  which  the  splendors  of  the  new  day  burst ! 

"  0  small  beginnings,  ye  are  great  and  strong, 

Based  on  a  faithful  heart  and  weariless  brain ; 
Ye  build  the  future  fair,  ye  conquer  wrong, 
Ye  earn  the  crown,  and  wear  it  not  in  vain !  " 

JAMES  EUSSELL  LOWELL. 

"It  is  not  possible  for  the  people  of  Rome  to  be  slaves,  whom  the 
gods  have  destined  to  the  command  of  all  nations.  Other  nations  may 
endure  slavery,  but  the  proper  end  and  business  of  the  Roman  people 
is  liberty."  —  CICERO. 

"Among  our  politicians  are  men  who  regard  public  life  as  a  charmed 
circle  into  which  moral  principle  must  not  enter,  who  know  no  law 
but  expediency,  who  are  prepared  to  kiss  the  feet  of  the  South  for 
Southern  votes,  and  who  stand  ready  to  echo  all  the  vituperations  of 
the  slave-holder  against  the  active  enemies  of  slavery  in  the  free 
States."  —  CHANNING. 


I. 


THE  DAWN  OF  REFORM. 

WHILE  the  despotic  principle,  with  rapacious  in 
solence,  was  aggressing  upon  the  heritage  of  free 
dom  ;  while  —  emboldened  by  past  success,  and 
gorged  with  Federal  patronage — it  was  apparently 
in  the  act  of  completing  the  subjugation  of  the 
republic,  —  a  spirit  of  RESISTANCE,  grounded  in 
the  moral  nature  of  the  best  men,  and  sharpened 
by  discussion  and  adversity,  —  despised  at  first,  but 
continually  augmenting  in  power  and  in  fame, — 
was  rising  in  the  national  heart,  quickening  the 
national  conscience,  and  preparing  to  cope  with 
the  hitherto  resistless  apostasy. 

The  germ  of  this  reform  spirit  may  be  traced 
back  to  the  agitation  attending  the  admission  of 
Missouri.  The  popular  interest  in  that  transac 
tion  had  been  intense.  From  the  floor  of  Con 
gress,  where  the  rival  interests  were  struggling  in 
the  throes  of  debate,  to  the  backwoods  of  Arkan 
sas  and  the  Mexican  Gulf,  on  the  South,  to  the 
frontiers  of  Maine  and  the  prairies  of  Illinois,  on 
the  North,  the  storm  of  agitation  swept  the  land. 
Many  freemen  at  the  North,  at  that  early  period, 
clearly  discerned  the  purposes  of  the  slave  Propa- 


90  OUR   POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

ganda ;  apprehended  the  momentous  issue  that 
was  preparing  for  the  future ;  and,  as  stout 
hearted  champions  of  justice,  placed  their  lances 
in  rest  for  a  life-long  encounter  with  the  advan 
cing  despotism.  Reviled  and  misjudged,  perse 
cuted  and  counter-worked,  by  those  who  should 
have  joined  hands  with  them  in  the  great  contest, 
many  of  those  early  opponents  of  slavery  became 
the  salt  of  whatever  free  sentiment  survived  in 
America,  —  A  SAVOR  OF  LIFE  to  a  nation  all  but 
mortally  corrupted ;  and  their  record  is  yet  to  be 
written,  their  fidelity  blazoned,  and  their  princi 
ples  justified,  by  a  people  ransomed  through  their 
long-suffering  heroism. 

One  of  the  earliest  and  ablest  of  those  who  took 
the  field,  to  resist  the  formidable  advance  of  the 
slave  power,  and  to  plead  for  the  trampled  rights 
of  its  victims,  was  BENJAMIN  LUNDY,  who  estab 
lished  a  monthly  periodical,  the  Genius  of  Univer 
sal  Emancipation,  in  the  year  1821.  With  the 
most  self-denying  and  enlightened  zeal,  MR.  LUN 
DY,  in  the  course  of  the  next  ten  years,  visited 
nineteen  States  of  the  Union,  penetrated  into  Mex 
ico,  and  performed  two  voyages  to  the  West  In 
dies, —  having  held  during  the  period  more  than 
two  hundred  public  meetings,  travelled  upwards 
of  five  thousand  miles  on  foot,  and  sacrificed  sev 
eral  thousand  dollars  of  his  own  hard  earnings. 
To  his  indefatigable  research,  the  North  owes  the 
first  disclosure  of  the  Texas  plot ;  and  to  him  be- 


THE  DAWN  OF  REFORM.  97 

longs  the  credit  of  having  armed  with  authentic 
facts,  and  inspired  with  salutary  alarm,  such  men 
as  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  and  DR.  CHANNING,  —  the 
latter  of  whom  confesses,  in  his  letter  to  HENRY 
CLAY,  his  indebtedness  to  MR.  LUNDY'S  labors. 

WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON  became  first  known 
to  the  public,  while  a  journeyman  printer  at  New- 
buryport,  Massachusetts,  by  paragraphs  furnished 
to  the  newspaper  on  which  he  was  employed.  In 
vited  to  Boston,  in  1827  or  1828,  to  take  tempo 
rary  charge  of  the  only  temperance  paper  then 
published  in  the  country,  he  extended  his  fame. 
He  became  first  known  as  an  antagonist  of  slavery, 
we  believe,  while  editing  the  Journal  of  the  Times , 
in  Vermont. 

In  1829,  he  became  associated  for  a  short  time 
with  BENJAMIN  LUNDY,  at  Baltimore,  in  the  publi 
cation  of  the  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation. 
This  connection  led  to  one  of  the  many  remark 
able  episodes  in  the  history  of  the  Abolition  move 
ment.  It  happened  that,  about  the  time  of  MR. 
GARRISON'S  removal  to  Baltimore,  the  ship  Francis, 
owned  by  FRANCIS  TODD,  of  Newburyport,  Massa 
chusetts,  "  being  at  Baltimore  for  freight,  was  em 
ployed  in  taking  from  thence  a  cargo  of  slaves  for 
New  Orleans."  MR.  GARRISON  made,  in  his  paper, 
so  severe  an  allusion  to  the  circumstance,  "  that 
MR.  TODD  directed  a  suit  to  be  brought  against 
him  for  a  libel."  Tried  by  a  Maryland  court,  in 
February,  1830,  he  was  convicted  in  a  fine  of  one 
hundred  dollars,  besides  costs,  and  thrown  into 

5  <J 


98  OUR   POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

jail  for  non-payment  of  the  same.  From  this  con 
viction  sprung  the  charge,  with  which  some  of  his 
opponents  were  wont  to  stigmatize  him  in  subse 
quent  years,  of  his  being  a  "  convicted  felon." 
His  treatment  roused  a  strong  excitement  at  the 
North,  and  gave  an  impulse  to  the  anti-slavery 
cause  which  later  events  have  only  accelerated. 
MR.  GARRISON  lay  in  jail  about  fifty  days,  when  his 
release  was  effected,  chiefly  through  the  generosity 
of  a  New  York  merchant,  MR.  ARTHUR  TAPPAN, 
whose  name  thenceforward,  with  that  of  his  broth 
er,  LEWIS  TAPPAN,  was  identified  with  the  cause  of 
freedom. 

In  January,  1831,  MR.  GARRISON,  having  dis 
solved  partnership  with  MR.  LUNDY,  commenced 
the  publication  of  The  Liberator  in  Boston,  becom 
ing  from  that  time  the  stanch  standard-bearer  in 
the  cause  for  which  he  had  already  suffered. 

In  an  early  issue  of  his  new  paper  he  recorded 
this  memorable  declaration  :  "I  am  aware  that 
many  object  to  the  severity  of  my  language  ;  but 
is  there  not  cause  for  severity  ?  I  will  be  as  harsh 
as  truth,  and  as  uncompromising  as  justice.  I  am 
in  EARNEST  ;  I  will  not  equivocate ;  I  will  not  ex 
cuse  ;  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch  ;  AND  I  WILL 
BE  HEARD."  How  nobly  the  brave  man  has  re 
deemed  his  pledge  may  be  seen  in  the  influence 
which  his  inflexible  genius  has  exerted  during  the 
past  thirty  years  of  American  history. 

The  rise  of  the  Abolition  Party  demonstrated,  as 


THE   DAWN   OF   REFORM.  99 

nothing  else  had  ever  done,  the  dangerous  ascen 
dency  which  slavery  had  already  obtained  over  the 
nation.  The  voice  of  Liberty  had  already  become 
forgotten.  When  it  swelled  again  on  the  air,  the 
people  mistook  it  for  the  voice  of  anarchy.  It  was 
like  proclaiming  a  new  Gospel  in  a  land  which 
had  lapsed  into  Heathenism.  The  idols  were  re 
stored  ;  the  true  God  was  forgotten.  The  priests 
of  Baal  had  supplanted  the  holy  prophets.  The 
very  principles  recognized  by  the  past  generation 
as  u  self-evident  truths  "  exasperated  their  degen 
erate  children.  The  avowal  of  Abolitionism  — 
which  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN,  THOMAS  JEFFERSON, 
JAMES  MADISON,  JOHN  JAY,  ALEXANDER  HAMIL 
TON,  and  many  of  their  contemporaries,  had  gloried 
in  proclaiming  —  now  served,  in  1830,  to  cover 
with  odium  the  most  spotless  of  men.  The  very 
doctrines  which  had  been  held  by  the  author  of 
the  Declaration,  by  most  of  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution,  by  Presidents  of  Colleges,  by  Gov 
ernors  of  States,  by  Judges  in  the  Federal  Courts, 
by  foreign  Ministers,  by  the  early  Presidents  of  the 
United  States,  and  by  all  the  Christian  denomi 
nations,  at  the  close  of  the  last  century,  only 
thirty-five  years  later  subjected  men  and  women 
to  the  violence  of  mobs,  to  the  destruction  of  their 
property,  and  to  brutal  assassination  ! 

What  more  conclusive  evidence  could  we  re 
quire  of  the  necessity  of  a  political  reformation 
than  that  presented  in  the  outrages  with  which  the 
doctrines  of  liberty  were  repelled,  and  in  the 


100  OUR  POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

strange  torpor  with  which  the  community  saw  its 
noblest  champions  struck  down  in  the  exercise  of 
their  inalienable  rights  ? 

DR.  CHANNING,  who  controverted  the  position  of 
the  Abolitionists,  bears  generous  testimony  to  the 
services  they  rendered,  in  that  critical  hour,  to  the 
cause  of  free  speech  and  a  free  press.  "  I  am  my 
self,"  he  says,  "  their  debtor.  I  am  not  sure  that 
I  should  this  moment  write  in  safety  had  they 
shrunk  from  the  conflict,  —  had  they  shut  their 
lips,  imposed  silence  on  their  presses,  and  hid 
themselves  before  their  ferocious  assailants.  I 
know  not  where  these  outrages  would  have  stopped 
had  they  not  met  resistance  from  their  first  des 
tined  victims.  The  newspaper  press,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  uttered  no  genuine  indignant  rebuke 
of  the  wrong-doers,  but  rather  countenanced,  by 
its  gentle  censures,  the  reign  of  Force.  The  mass 
of  the  people  looked  supinely  on  this  new  tyran 
ny,  tinder  which  a  portion  of  their  fellow-citizens 
seemed  to  be  sinking.  A  tone  of  denunciation  was 
beginning  to  proscribe  all  discussion  of  slavery ; 
and  had  the  spirit  of  violence,  which  selected  as 
sociations  as  its  first  objects,  succeeded  in  this 
preparatory  enterprise,  it  might  have  been  easily 
turned  against  any  and  every  individual  who 
might  presume  to  agitate  the  unwelcome  sub 
ject I  thank  the  Abolitionists  that,  in  this 

evil  day,  they  were  true  to  the  rights  which  the 
multitude  were  ready  to  betray."  * 

*  Channing's  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  160. 


II. 


WHY   THE   REFOKM   WAS  RESISTED. 

SOME  efforts  were  made  to  justify  the  outrages 
of  the  period  by  charging  upon  the  Abolitionists 
the  most  nefarious  designs.  They  intended  to  in 
stigate  servile  insurrections.  They  wanted  the 
slaves  to  murder  their  masters.  They  advocated 
amalgamation.  They  were  infidels  to  the  Church 
of  Christ,  and  traitors  to  the  government  of  their 
country.  All  these  charges  are  now  known  to 
have  been  false.  Few  candid  men,  having  any 
thing  like  extensive  information,  ever  believed 
them.  They  were  fabricated^  in  the  same  base 
spirit  that  animated  the  mobs  they  were  designed 
to  excuse,  and  that  perpetrated  the  crimes  they 
were  designed  to  shelter  from  justice.  "  Who 
are  the  men,"  wrote  DR.  CHANNING,  "  whose  of 
fences  are  so  aggravated,  that  they  must  be  de 
nied  the  protection  of  the  laws,  and  given  up  to 
the  worst  passions  of  the  multitude  ?  Are  they 
profligate  in  principle  and  life,  teachers  of  impious 
or  servile  doctrines,  the  enemies  of  God  and  their 
race  ?  I  speak  not  from  vague  rumor,  but  from 
better  means  of  knowledge,  when  I  say,  that  a 
body  of  men  and  women  more  blameless  than 


•102  OUR  PpIJTICAL   REGENERATION. 

the  Abolitionists  in  their  various  relations,  or 
more  disposed  to  adopt  a  rigid  construction  of 
the  Christian  precepts,  cannot  be  found  among 
us.  Of  their  judiciousness  and  wisdom,  I  do  not 
speak,  but  I  believe  they  yield  to  no  party  in 
moral  worth.  Their  great  crime,  and  one  which 
in  this  land  of  liberty  is  to  be  punished  above 
all  crimes,  is  this,  that  they  carry  the  doctrine 
of  human  equality  to  its  full  extent,  that  they 
plead  vehemently  for  the  oppressed,  that  they 
assail  wrong-doing,  however  sanctioned  by  opin 
ion  or  intrenched  behind  wealth  and  power,  that 
their  zeal  for  human  rights  is  without  measure, 
that  they  associate  themselves  fervently  with  the 
Christians  and  philanthropists  of  other  countries 
against  the  worst  relic  of  barbarous  times.  Such 
is  the  offence  against  which  mobs  are  arrayed, 
and  which  is  counted  so  flagrant,  that  a  sum 
mary  justice  too  indignant  to  wait  for  the  tardy 
progress  of  tribunals  must  take  the  punishment 
into  its  own  hands."  * 

In  his  essay  on  "  Slavery,"  DR.  CHANNING  thus 
refers  to  this  body  of  reformers,  "  everywhere 
spoken  against " :  "As  a  party,  they  are  singu 
larly  free  from  political  and  religious  sectarian 
ism,  and  have  been  distinguished  by  the  absence 
of  management,  calculation,  and  worldly  wisdom. 
That  they  have  ever  proposed  or  desired  insur 
rection  or  violence  among  the  slaves,  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe.  All  their  principles  repel  the 

*  Channing's  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  162. 


WHY   THE  REFORM  WAS  RESISTED.  103 

supposition.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  though 
the  South  and  the  North  have  been  leagued  to 
crush  them,  though  they  have  been  watched  by  a 
million  of  eyes,  and  though  prejudice  has  been 
prepared  to  detect  the  slightest  sign  of  corrupt 
communication  with  the  slave,  yet  this  crime  has 
not  been  fastened  on  a  single  member  of  this 
body."  * 

The  real  offence  of  the  Abolitionists  consisted, 
beyond  question,  in  the  soundness  of  their  prin 
ciples  and  the  veracity  of  their  statements.  Said 
the  sagacious  old  Fuller,  "  I  should  suspect  that 
his  preaching  had  no  salt  in  it,  if  no  galled  horse 
did  wince."  The  Church  leaders  and  the  poli 
ticians  were  the  galled  horses  of  that  era,  and 
the  pungent  TRUTHS  which  the  reformers  show 
ered  upon  the  community  were  the  salt  that  set 
them  bounding  with  indignation. 

*  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  124. 


III. 

THE  VANGUARD   OF  LIBERTY. 

AT  the  outset,  the  Abolitionists  —  themselves 
devoted  members  of  different  churches  and  par 
ties —  counted  on  being  able  to  enlist  the  relig 
ious  and  political  organizations  of  the  North  in 
the  cause  of  emancipation.  MR.  WILLIAM  GOOD- 
ELL  relates  that  he  accompanied  MR.  GARRISON, 
in  1829,  in  calling  upon  a  number  of  prominent 
ministers  in  Boston,  to  secure  their  co-operation 
in  the  cause,  their  expectations  of  important  as 
sistance  from  the  clergy  being  at  that  time  very 
sanguine. 

In  his  address  before  the  Colonization  Society, 
delivered  in  the  Park  Street  Church,  Boston,  on 
the  4th  of  July,  1829,  MR.  GARRISON  had  said :  "  I 
call  on  the  ambassadors  of  Christ  everywhere  to 
make  known  this  proclamation :  '  Thus  saith  the 
Lord  God  of  the  Africans,  Let  this  people  go, 
that  they  may  serve  me.'  I  ask  them  to  i  pro 
claim  liberty  to  the  captive,  and  the  opening  of 
the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound.'  I  call  on 
the  churches  of  the  living  God  to  LEAD  in  this 
great  enterprise."  But  the  ministers  withheld 
their  influence  ;  the  church  doors  were  closed 


THE  VANGUARD   OF   LIBERTY.  105 

against  those  apostles  of  freedom ;  and  the  ec 
clesiastical  polity  of  the  country,  locking  hands 
with  the  perverted  civil  government,  endeavored 
to  resist  the  progress  of  the  reform. 

At  that  time,  the  REV.  DR.  LYMAN  BEECHER, 
in  the  meridian  of  his  fame,  and  the  acknowl 
edged  leader  of  New  England  orthodoxy,  was 
"the  bright  particular  star"  of  the  Boston  pulpit. 
MR.  GARRISON  had  been  one  of  those  who  bowed 
to  the  spell  of  that  preacher's  eloquence,  and 
hailed  him  as  one  of  the  mightiest  of  God's  wit 
nesses.  "  He  waited  on  his  favorite  divine,  and 
urged  him  to  give  to  the  new  movement  the  in 
calculable  aid  of  his  name  and  countenance.  He 
was  patiently  heard.  He  was  allowed  to  unfold 
his  plans  and  array  his  facts.  The  reply  of  the 
veteran  was :  '  MR.  GARRISON,  I  have  too  many 
irons  in  the  fire  to  put  in  another.' '  The  ardent 
reformer  responded:  "Doctor,  you  had  better  take 
them  all  out  and  put  this  one  in,  if  you  mean 
well  either  to  the  religion  or  to  the  civil  liberty 
of  our  country."  * 

The  illustrious  but  maligned  leader  of  the  Abo 
litionists  speaks  as  follows  of  their  position,  their 
motives,  and  their  aims :  "  Originally  they  were 
generally  members  of  the  various  religious  bodies, 
tenacious  of  their  theological  views,  full  of  ven 
eration  for  the  organized  Church  and  ministry, 
but  ignorant  of  the  position  in  which  these  stood 
to  the  '  sum  of  all  villanies.'  What  would  ulti- 

*  Stated  on  the  authority  of  Wendell  Phillips. 
5* 


106  .     OUK   POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

mately  be  required  of  them  by  a  faithful  adhe 
rence  to  the  cause  of  the  slave,  in  their  church 
relations,  their  political  connections,  their  social 
ties,  their  worldly  interest  and  reputation,  they 
knew  not.  Instead  of  seeking  a  controversy  with 
the  pulpit  and  the  Church,  they  confidently  looked 
to  both  for  efficient  aid  to  their  cause.  Instead 
of  suddenly  withdrawing  from  the  pro-slavery  re 
ligious  and  political  organizations  with  which  they 
were  connected,  they  lingered  long  and  labored 
hard  to  -  bring  them  to  repentance.  They  were 
earnest,  but  well-balanced  ;  intrepid,  but  circum 
spect;  importunate,  but  long-suffering.  Their  con 
troversy  was  neither  personal  nor  sectional ;.  their 
object  neither  to  arraign  any  sect  nor  to  assail 
any  party  primarily.  They  sought  to  liberate  the 
slave  by  every  righteous  instrumentality,  and  noth 
ing  more.  But,  to  their  grief  and  amazement, 
they  were  gradually  led  to  perceive,  by  the  ter 
rible  revelations  of  the  hour,  that  the  religious 
forces  on  which  they  had  relied  were  all  arrayed 
on  the  side  of  the  oppressor,  that  the  North  was 
as  hostile  to  emancipation  as  the  South,  that  the 
spirit  of  slavery  was  omnipresent,  invading  every 
sanctuary,  infecting  every  pulpit,  controlling  every 
press,  corrupting  every  household,  and  blinding 
every  vision ;  that  no  other  alternative  was  pre 
sented  to  them,  except  to  wage  war  with  £  prin 
cipalities  and  powers  and  spiritual  wickedness  in 
high  places,'  and  to  separate  themselves  from  every 
slave-holding  alliance  ;  or  else  to  substitute  com- 


THE   VANGUARD   OF   LIBERTY.  107 

promise  for  principle,  and  thus  betray  the  rights 
and  liberties  of  the  millions  in  thraldom,  at  a 
fearful  cost  to  their  own  souls.  If  some  of  them 
faltered  and  perished  by  the  way,  if  others  de 
serted  the  cause  and  became  its  bitterest  enemies, 
if  others  still  withdrew  from  the  ranks,  their  sec 
tarian  attachment  overmastering  their  love  of  hu 
manity,  and  leading  them  basely  to  misrepresent 
and  revile  their  old  associates,  the  main  body 
proved  fearless  and  incorruptible  ;  and,  through 
the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  -and  its  aux 
iliaries,  have  remained  steadfast  to  the  present 
hour."* 

From  the  commencement  of  the  Liberator,  in 
1831,  to  the  establishment  of  the  right  of  petition, 
in  1845,  the  Abolitionists  fought  the  battle  of  lib 
erty  against  a  degenerate  age,  with  an  intrepidity 
and  persistence,  with  a  fidelity  and  heroism,  that 
find  no  parallel  on  this  continent.  Theirs  became 
a  contest,  not  simply  in  behalf  of  the  freedom  of 
the  colored  race,  but  also  in  behalf  of  the  right 
of  the  American  people  to  free  speech  and  a  free 
press,  — a  right  which,  but  for  their  dignified  and 
resolute  resistance,  might  have  been  yielded  up 
at  the  demand  of  the  Southern  despots  and  their 
pliant  retainers.  At  the  cost  of  fourteen  years' 
effort  and  suffering,  by  tireless  research,  debate, 
expostulation,  and  petition,  in  the  face  of  igno- 

*  See  an  anti-slavery  tract  entitled  "  The  '  Infidelity  '  of  Abolition 
ism,"  p.  7. 


108  OUK  POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

ranee  and  bigotry,  of  partisan  malice  and  fanat 
ical  violence,  that  band  of  iron  men  and  loyal 
women  RESCUED  THE  NATION  from  the  clutch  of 
the  slave  power,  displayed  the  resistless  energy 
of  truth,  and  vindicated  for  all  time,  let  us  trust, 
the  benefit  of  free  inquiry  and  fair  discussion. 

Let  us  notice  some  of  their  measures,  and  a 
few  of  the  wrongs  they  were  called  to  suffer. 


IV. 

ORGANIZATION  AND   OPPOSITION. 

IN  January,  1832,  the  New  England  Anti-Slav 
ery  Society  was  organized  in  Boston,  and,  with 
meagre  resources,  went  into  operation.  The  New 
York  Evangelist  espoused  the  cause,  and  contrib 
uted  to  augment  the  discussion.  The  Genius  of 
Temperance  was  already  enlisted  on  the  side  of 
freedom.  Both  these  papers  enjoyed  an  extensive 
circulation  at  that  time  in  most  of  the  States,  South 
as  well  as  North.  In  the  spring  of  1833,  by  the 
liberality  of  ARTHUR  and  LEWIS  TAPPAN,  merchants 
of  New  York,  The  Emancipator  was  commenced. 
During  the  same  year,  partly  through  the  same 
generous  instrumentality,  large  numbers  of  anti- 
slavery  tracts  were  issued,  and  sent  by  mail  to  the 
clergy  of  all  denominations,  and  to  prominent  men, 
throughout  the  country.  By  these  means,  the  dis 
cussion  of  slavery  became  inaugurated  in  most  of 
the  free  States.  It  roused  the  people  from  their 
lethargy,  and  compelled  them  to  take  sides.  And, 
although  the  majority  were  alarmed,  and  followed 
the  bent  of  their  prejudices,  or  the  beck  of  their 
party  and  sectarian  leaders,  instead  of  candidly 


110  OUR   POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

examining  the  merits  of  the  cause,  many  powerful 
men  were  enlisted  at  that  period.* 

The  doctrine  of  the  Abolitionists,  that  of  imme 
diate  and  unconditional  emancipation  on  the  soil, 
brought  them  in  collision,  not  only  with  the  gen 
eral  prejudice  of  the  time,  but  with  the  Coloniza 
tion  Society  in  particular. 

This  Society  had  been  formed  about  the  year 
1816,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Virginia  Legislature, 
and  solely  through  the  agency  of  slave-holders.  Its 
object,  as  defined  by  its  own  constitution,  was  "  to 
promote  and  execute  a  plan  for  colonizing  (witli 
their  consent)  the  free  people  of  color  residing  in 
our  country,  in  Africa,  or  such  other  place  as  Con 
gress  shall  deem  most  expedient."!  The  grand  aim 
of  the  Society,  as  disclosed  by  its  subsequent  pro 
ceedings,  was  to  induce  the  General  and  State  gov 
ernments  to  provide  means  for  the  removal  of  the 
free  Negroes  from  their  midst,  thereby  reducing 
the  chances  of  servile  insurrections  ;  and  at  the 
same  time  to  furnish  a  plausible  occasion  for  the 
humane  sentiment  of  the  country  to  vent  itself 
without  damage  to  the  system  of  slavery.  It  was 
a  device  every  way  worthy  of  the  profound  craft 
of  the  slave-holding  oligarchy  ;  and  it  imposed 
upon  thousands  of  people  at  the  North,  who  nat 
tered  themselves  that  they  were  doing  something 
to  mitigate  the  sufferings  of  the  colored  race. 


*  Goodell,  pp.  392,  393. 

f  See  Constitution  of  the  Society,  Art.  11. 


ORGANIZATION  AND   OPPOSITION.  Ill 

whereas  they  were  really  contributing  to  perpet 
uate  their  wrongs.* 

The  Abolitionists  boldly  exposed  the  fraudulent 
pretences  with  which  the  claims  of  the  Coloniza 
tion  Society  were  advocated  at  the  North,  having 
received  in  their  own  persons,  from  members  of 
that  Society,  abundant  evidence  of  its  hostility  to 
any  scheme  of  emancipation.  And  their  views 
were  ultimately  confirmed  in  a  celebrated  speech 
of  HENRY  CLAY,  himself  one  of  the  authors  of  the 
colonization  scheme,  in  which  he  announced  his 
conviction  that  slavery  must  be  perpetual,  though 
the  African  race  would  perish  under  the  system. 
That  startling  declaration  of  MR.  CLAY  opened  the 
eyes  of  many  Northern  people.  They  saw  that, 
if  the  great  Kentuckian  had  given  utterance  to  the 
real  sentiment  of  the  South,  there  was  no  alterna 
tive  between  radical  Abolitionism  and  the  endless 
perpetuity  of  that  dreadful  system  which  was  to 
extinguish  the  black  race  and  engulf  the  white. 

On  the  2d  of  October,  1833,  a  New  York  City 
Anti-Slavery  Society  was  formed,  the  event  being 
signalized  "  by  demonstrations  of  tumult  and  vio 
lence."  The  meeting  had  been  called  at  Clinton 
Hall,  but,  inasmuch  as  a  counter  notice,  signed 
by  "Many  Southrons,"  called  a  meeting  at  the 
same  time  and  place,  the  Abolitionists  assembled 
at  Chatham  Street  Chapel.  "  Their  opposers,  find- 

*  Goodell,  pp.  342  -  352.  See  also  "  An  Inquiry  into  the  Character 
and  Tendency  of  the  American  Colonization  and  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Societies." 


112  OUR   POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

ing  Clinton  Hall  closed,  adjourned  to  Tammany 
Hall,  and  made  speeches  and  adopted  resolutions 
against  them."  Learning,  at  length,  where  the 
Abolitionists  were  assembled,  they  adjourned  by 
acclamation,  and  poured  into  the  Chatham  Street 
Chapel  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  "  routing  "  its 
peaceful  occupants.  The  meeting  had  already  ad 
journed,  but  most  of  the  attendants  were  still  in 
the  house.  The  rioters  called  for  several  Abo 
litionists  by  name,  and  the  words,  "  Ten  thousand 
dollars  for  ARTHUR  TAPPAN  !  "  were  shouted  by  the 
mob.  No  personal  violence,  however,  was  done. 

The  mob-meeting  at  Tammany  Hall  had  been 
"organized  by  prominent  citizens,  addressed  by 
popular  public  speakers,"  and  it  was  commended 
by  the  city  press.  "  By  the  same  class  of  citizens  a 

colonization  meeting  was  promptly  called 

The  Mayor  of  the  city  presided.  The  orators 
dwelt  on  the  reckless  agitations  of  the  Abolition 
ists.  Not  a  word  of  disapprobation  of  the  late 
outrage  against  them  was  uttered.  THEODORE 
FRELINGHUYSEN,  United  States  Senator  from  New 
Jersey,  charged  them  with  '  seeking  to  dissolve  the 
Union.'  CHANCELLOR  WALWORTH  was  in  attend 
ance,  from  Albany,  to  declare  their  efforts  '  uncon 
stitutional,'  and  to  denounce  them  as  '  reckless 
incendiaries.'  DAVID  B.  OGDEN,  ESQ.,  declared 
'  the  doctrine  of  immediate  emancipation  a  direct 
and  palpable  nullification  of  the  Constitution.' 
MR.  FRELINGHUYSEN  further  declared,  that  'nine 
tenths  of  the  horrors  of  slavery  are  imaginary,' 


ORGANIZATION   AND   OPPOSITION.  113 

and  i  the  crusade  of  abolition '  he  regarded  as 
'  the  poetry  of  philanthropy.'  "  * 

Still,  the  reform  grew.  In  December,  1833,  a 
National  Anti-Slavery  Convention,  represented  by 
delegates  from  ten  States,  met  at  Philadelphia. 
"  BERIAH  GREEN,  President  of  Oneida  Institute, 
was  chosen  President  of  the  Convention,  and  LEW 
IS  TAPPAN  and  JOHN  G.  WHITTIER,  Secretaries. 
The  members  united  in  signing  a  declaration  of 
their  sentiments,  objects,  and  measures,  prepared 
in  committee,  from  a  draft  by  MR.  GARRISON.  This 
Convention  organized  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society The  Executive  Committee  was  lo 
cated  in  New  York  City,  the  seat  of  the  Society's 
operations,  which  were  now  prosecuted  with  vigor. 
The  Emancipator,  under  the  editorial  charge  of 
WILLIAM  GOODELL,  one  of  the  Executive  Com 
mittee,  became  the  organ  of  the  Society.  Tracts, 
pamphlets,  and  books  were  published  and  circu 
lated,  a  large  number  of  lecturing  agents  were 
employed,  conventions  were  held,"  and  auxiliary 
societies  organized  throughout  the  free  States. f 

In  this  way  was  carried  forward  the  great  re 
form  which  first  broke  the  despotism  of  the  slave 
power  at  the  North,  and  which  has  inspired  and 
equipped  all  subsequent  movements  tending  to  our 
political  regeneration. 

*  Goodell,  pp.  395,  396.  t  Ibid.,  pp.  396,  397. 

H 


Y. 

THE  OPPOSITION  BY  MOBS. 

THE  progress  of  the  work  roused  a  resistance 
every  way  characteristic  of  the  gigantic  evil  that 
was  to  be  overthrown.  "  An  attempt  to  hold  an 
anti-slavery  meeting  in  the  city  of  New  York,  on 
the  4th  of  July,  1834,  was  made  the  occasion  of 
a  frightful  and  protracted  riot.  The  meeting  was 
broken  up,  and  for  several  successive  days  and 
evenings  the  city  was  in  possession  of  the  rioters, 
who  assaulted  private  dwellings  and  places  of  pub 
lic  worship,  and  attempted  personal  violence  upon 
Abolitionists.  Similar  scenes  were  enacted  in  Phil 
adelphia,  a  few  weeks  afterwards.  Extensive  dam 
ages  were  done  to  the  private  dwellings  and  public 
buildings  of  the  unoffending  colored  people,  who 
had  been  cruelly  maligned,  and  wantonly  held  up 
to  public  odium,  at  a  Colonization  meeting  a  short 
time  previous.  During  these  riots,  which  were 
of  several  days'  recurrence,  many  of  the  colored 
people  were  wounded,  and  some  of  them  lost  their 
lives.  These  early  examples  of  lawlessness  —  no 
toriously  countenanced,  as  they  were,  by  men  of 
wealth  and  influence,  excited  by  eloquent  orators, 
and  palliated  afterwards  by  the  public  press  —  far- 


THE   OPPOSITION  BY  MOBS.  115 

nishcd  precedents  for  similar  outrages  throughout 
the  free  States  for  a  series  of  years." 

We  can  but  glance  at  two  or  three  of  these  dis 
graceful  events.  At  Canaan,  New  Hampshire,  on 
the  10th  of  August,  1835,  an  academy  was  de 
molished  by  a  mob,  because  colored  youth  were 
admitted  to  its  privileges. 

At  Boston,  on  the  21st  of  October,  the  Female 
Anti-Slavery  Society  was  dispersed  while  the  Pres 
ident  was  at  prayer.  The  mob  engaged  in  this 
chivalrous  enterprise  was  composed  of  five  thou 
sand  "  gentlemen  of  property  and  standing,"  as 
they  were  described  by  the  city  press.  Finding 
MR.  GARRISON  in  the  street,  they  seized  him,  and 
dragged  him  some  distance  with  a  rope  around 
his  body.  The  Mayor  of  the  city,  hardly  daring 
to  cross  the  wislies  of  this  mob  of  "  gentlemen," 
lodged  MR.  GARRISON  in  the  jail  for  protection. 
Soon  after,  at  the  "  earnest  entreaty  "  of  the  city 
authorities,  he  left  Boston  for  a  brief  season.  Like 
certain  refprmers  of  old,  he  "  had  filled  Jerusalem 
with  his  doctrine,"  and  the  Sanhedrim  of  Boston 
were  driven  to  their  wits'  end  to  know  what  to  do 
with  him. 

At  Utica,  New  York,  on  the  same  day, "  a  mem 
ber  of  Congress  "  headed  a  committee  of  "  twenty- 
five  prominent  citizens "  who  proceeded  to  break 
up  aa  meeting  convened  to  form  a  New  York 
State  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  threw  down  the 
press  of  a  Democratic  journal,  which  had  espoused 
the  anti-slavery  cause.  By  invitation  of  HON. 


116  OUK   POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

GERRIT  SMITH,  who,  on  that  occasion,  identified 
himself  with  them,  the  Abolitionists  repaired  to 
his  residence  at  Peterboro',  twenty-five  miles  dis 
tant,"  where  they  completed  their  organization. 
The  trinity  of  outrages  which  disgraced  the  mem 
orable  day  was  completed  at  Montpelier,  Vermont, 
by  a  demonstration  of  mob  violence  against  the 
REV.  SAMUEL  J.  MAY,  resulting  in  the  breaking 
up  of  a  meeting  which  he  had  called  in  that  town. 

In  December,  1836,  the  Southern  students  at 
Yale  College,  New  Haven,  broke  up  an  anti-slavery 
meeting  convened  in  that  city.  "  At  Alton,  111., 
November  7th,  1837,  the  press  of  the  Alton  Ob 
server  was  destroyed  by  a  mob,  and  the  editor, 
REV.  ELIJAH  P.  LOVEJOY,  shot  dead,  receiving  four 
balls  in  his  breast.  The  murderers  were  not 
brought  to  justice." 

In  Philadelphia,  on  the  17th  of  May,  1838, 
Pennsylvania  Hall  was  burned  by  a  mob,  because 
it  had  been  opened  to  the  obnoxious  reformers. 
At  Cincinnati,  September  5th,  1841,  the  printing- 
press  of  the  Philanthropist,  edited  by  JAMES  G. 
BIRNEY  (formerly  a  slave-holder  in  Kentucky), 
was  destroyed,  for  the  third  time,  by  a  ferocious 
mob.* 

Well  might  DR.  CHANNING  —  one  of  the  most 
candid  spectators  of  these  events  —  declare,  "  that 
our  history  contains  no  page  more  disgraceful  to  us 
as  freemen,  than  that  which  records  the  violences 
against  the  Abolitionists."  During  all  that  time, 

*  Goodell,  pp.  404-407. 


THE   OPPOSITION  BY  MOBS.  117 

people  were  being  told  that  men  at  the  North  had 
no  concern  with  slavery,  —  that  the  "fanatics" 
were  meddling  with  a  foreign  interest ;  whereas  it 
was  a  notorious  fact,  that  the  despotic  system  had 
so  far  encroached  upon  the  North,  and  so  deplor 
ably  corrupted  Northern  society,  that  it  had  be 
come  about  as  dangerous  to  rebuke  it  in  Boston  or 
New  York,  in  Philadelphia  or  Cincinnati,  as  it 
would  have  been  in  Charleston  or  New  Orleans. 
The  lash  of  the  slave-holder  was  virtually  bran 
dished  in  the  face  of  every  man  who  dared  to  say 
that  slavery  is  a  sin. 


VI. 

SUBSERVIENCY  OF  THE  NORTH. 

WE  have  witnessed  the  first  resolute  effort  to 
break  the  authority  of  the  DESPOTIC  SYSTEM  at  the 
North.  We  have  seen,  in  the  fanatical  resistance 
that  was  opposed  to  that  peaceful  effort,  how  the 
cause  of  the  slave's  emancipation  became  identi 
fied  with  the  right  of  a  free  people  to  discuss  and 
publish  their  honest  convictions.  The  advent  of 
Abolitionism  revealed  the  fact,  that  the  Southern 
despotism  had  not  only  subjugated  the  liberties  of 
the  negro,  but  also  encroached  to  an  ominous 
extent  on  the  prerogatives  of  the  white  man. 
Hence  it  happened  that  many  discerning  persons, 
who  regarded  the  idea  of  immediate  emancipation 
as  visionary  and  impracticable,  hailed  and  honored 
the  Abolitionists,  nevertheless,  as  timely  and  bold 
asserters  of  the  right  of  the  American  citizen  to 
free  discussion  and  a  free  press. 

The  alarm  and  rage  which  the  progress  of  the 
reform  elicited  at  the  South  may  be  readily  appre 
hended.  The  system  of  slavery  can  be  protected 
only  by  suppressing  discussion.  Allow  inquiry, 
research,  reflection,  and  the  odious  depravity  of 
the  system  stands  revealed,  —  convicted  of  being 


SUBSERVIENCY  OF  THE  NORTH.       119 

so  bad  that  no  consideration  can  palliate  or  excuse 
it.  If  conscience  be  quickened,  if  the  sense  of 
justice  be  allowed  to  speak,  if  light  fall  upon  the 
great  wrong,  it  must  disappear.  Conscious  of 
these  facts,  the  slave-holders  saw  in  the  reviving 
discussion  of  the  subject  at  the  North  the  omen 
of  their  coming  ruin.  In  the  West  Indies,  too, 
the  process  of  emancipation,  transpiring  under  the 
most  satisfactory  auspices,  had  already  vindicated 
the  most  radical  plans  of  reform,  and  it  held  out  a 
perpetual  invitation  to  the  United  States  to  seek 
both  safety  and  honor  in  an  act  of  national 
justice. 

Besides,  the  agitation  of  the  question  was  liable 
to  penetrate  to  the  slaves,  and  stimulate  servile 
insurrections.  The  affair  at  Southampton,  in  Vir 
ginia,  in  1831,  headed  by  Nat  Turner,  and  the 
discovery  of  the  slave  plot  at  Charleston  a  few 
years  earlier,  had  shown  the  South  that  their 
social  system  was  built  over  a  powder-magazine, 
and  that  every  family  drew  breath  amid  the  most 
awful  possibilities. 

With  the  blind  wilfulness  characteristic  of  des 
potism,  the  slave-holders  refused  to  see  that  their 
danger  and  prospective  ruin  were  the  necessary 
corollaries  of  their  system,  —  not  to  be  averted  by 
arbitrary  efforts  to  suppress  discussion  in  free 
States,  but  to  be  accepted  as  the  retributive  ele 
ment  inseparable  from  wanton  oppression.  Their 
attitude  toward  the  reform  was  at  least  natural, 
and  the  measures  they  resorted  to  may  be  fairly 
viewed  as  the  simple  dictates  of  their  instinct. 


120  OUR  POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

The  conduct  of  their  abettors  at  the  North  was 
less  excusable.  The  opposition  in  the  free  States 
was  dictated  by  commercial  interest,  by  partisan 
prejudice,  and  by  sectarian  selfishness.  Many  of 
the  merchants  in  the  large  cities  enjoyed  a  lucra 
tive  trade  with  the  South,  and  were  virtually 
under  bonds  to  ignore  the  abominations  of  slav 
ery.  Both  the  great  political  parties  of  the  day 
were  in  the  power  of  the  South,  and  bound  to 
do  its  bidding.  This  the  leaders  of  those  parties 
well  knew,  but  the  masses  of  the  people  who  sup 
ported  them  were  not  admitted  to  the  political 
secrets  of  the  time.  The  Churches  had  their 
Southern  connections,  and  the  interests  of  de 
nominational  unity  required  them  to  acquiesce  in 
the  public  opinion  that  indorsed  the  slave  system. 

Thus  the  whole  North  was  bound  to  the  South 
by  commercial,  political,  and  ecclesiastical  ties ; 
and  hence  a  great  majority  of  the  Northern  people, 
in  the  first  great  issue  raised  by  the  Abolition 
ists,  espoused  the  cause  of  despotism. 


VII. 

THE   OPPOSITION  BY   STATES. 

SINCE  riots  and  mobs,  countenanced  by  the 
civil  authorities,  had  proved  inadequate  to  sub 
due  the  discussion  or  arrest  the  reform,  it  was 
proposed  to  invoke  the  majesty  of  the  State  and 
Federal  Governments.  In  the  Literary  and  Theo 
logical  Review  for  December,  1835,  published  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  the  position  was  elaborately 
argued,  that  the  "  radicals,"  meaning  the  Abo 
litionists,  were  "justly  liable  to  the  highest  civil 
penalties  and  ecclesiastical  censures."  This  sen 
timent  received  no  rebuke  from  any  of  the  pa 
trons  of  the  "  Review,"  nor  even  from  the  organs 
of  the  rival  theological  party. 

In  the  very  spirit  of  this  sentiment,  a  grand 
jury  of  the  County  of  Oneida,  just  previous  to 
the  riot  at  Utica,  made  a  presentment,  in  which 
they  declared,  that  those  who  form  Abolition  so 
cieties  are  guilty  of  sedition,  that  they  ought  to 
be  punished,  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  all  citi 
zens  loyal  to  the  Constitution  to  destroy  their 
publications  wherever  found. 

In  the  same  year,  the  HON.  WILLIAM  SULLIVAN 
issued  a  pamphlet  in  Boston,  in  which  the  fol- 


122  OUR   POLITICAL   REGENERATION. 

lowing  extraordinary  desire  is  expressed  :  "  It  is 
to  be  hoped  and  expected  that  Massachusetts  will 
enact  laws,  declaring  the  printing,  publishing,  and 
circulating  papers  and  pamphlets  on  slavery,  and 
also  the  holding  of  meetings  to  discuss  slavery 
and  abolition,  to  be  public  indictable  offences,  and 
provide  for  the  punishment  thereof  in  such  man 
ner  as  will  more  effectually  prevent  such  offen 
ces."  * 

The  South  was  not  backward  in  stimulating 
such  sentiments  and  measures  in  the  free  States. 
The  temper  of  the  South,  estimated  by  the  legis 
lative  and  ecclesiastical  memorials  of  the  period, 
was  exceedingly  vindictive  and  ferocious.  The 
native  malignity  of  slavery  gushed  forth  in  official 
acts,  reeking  with  the  barbarity  of  feudal  times. 
The  venom  of  the  popular  hatred  toward  the 
Abolitionists  exceeded  the  darkest  annals  of  Ital 
ian  rancor,  when  'Italy  was  most  seditious  and 
most  depraved.  The  Southern  Church  shared 
the  diabolical  spirit,  and  many  of  her  clergy  emu 
lated  the  vindictive  passion  of  the  BORGIAS  toward 
their  rivals,  in  their  frantic  opposition  to  the  idea 
of  emancipation,  and  their  besotted  devotion  to 
chattel  slavery. 

As  far  back  as  December,  1831,  the  Legislature 
of  Georgia,  with  the  approval  of  GOVERNOR  LUMP- 
KIN,  passed  an  act  offering  five  thousand  dollars  to 
whoever  might  arrest  and  bring  to  trial,  under  the 

*  Goodell,  pp.  409,  410. 


THE   OPPOSITION   BY   STATES.  123 

laws  of  that  State,  the  editor  or  publisher  of  The 
Liberator.  By  the  laws  of  Georgia,  MR.  GARRISON 
would  have  suffered  death.  But  he  was  not  a 
citizen  of  that  State,  and  could  have  been  taken 
there  for  trial  only  by  an  act  of  felonious  abduc 
tion,  —  an  act  which  the  Georgia  Legislature  thus 
invited  and  offered  to  reward.  Yet  the  State  of 
Massachusetts  took  no  notice  of  the  dastardly  prop 
osition  to  kidnap  one  of  her  citizens ;  so  base  had 
become  the  sentiment  of  that  once  noble  Common 
wealth.  The  example  of  Georgia  was  followed  at 
New  Orleans,  by  the  offer  of  twenty  thousand  dol 
lars  for  the  seizure  of  ARTHUR  TAPPAN.  Similar 
advertisements,  specifying  prominent  Abolitionists, 
and  offering  large  rewards  for  their  abduction, 
were  extensively  circulated  by  "  our  Southern 
brethren  "  ! 

With  an  impudence  that  posterity  will  find  it 
hard  to  credit,  the  Southern  State  Legislatures 
adopted  resolutions  calling  upon  the  free  State 
governments  to  enact  PENAL  LAWS  against  Abo 
lition  societies,  and  against  all  efforts  to  discuss 
the  subject  of  slavery.  But  it  must  astonish  the 
coming  age  yet  more  to  learn  that  the  Governors 
of  Massachusetts  and  New  York  —  one  a  Whig, 
the  other  a  Democrat  —  were  both  disposed  to  fa 
vor  these  despotic  measures. 

In  the  Legislature  of  Rhode  Island,  in  February, 
1836,  a  bill  was  actually  reported  in  conformity  to 
the  demands  of  the  South. 

GOVERNOR  GAYLE,  of  Alabama,  went  so  far  as 


124  OUR  POLITICAL   REGENERATION. 

to  demand  of  GOVERNOR  MARCY,  of  New  York,  the 
delivery  of  R.  G.  WILLIAMS,  publishing  agent  of 
the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  that  he  might 
be  tried  by  the  laws  of  Alabama  —  a  State  within 
whose  territory  he  had  never  been  —  for  having 
issued  in  The  Emancipator  a  sentiment  hostile  to 
slavery.  GOVERNOR  MARCY  declined  complying 
with  this  extraordinary  requisition,  but  was  fa 
vorable  to  the  enactment  of  laws  in  New  York  for 
the  punishment  of  such  offences  ! 

In  Ohio,  in  1838,  GOVERNOR  VANCE,  on  requi 
sition  of  GOVERNOR  CLARK,  of  Kentucky,  did  de 
liver  up  one  of  its  citizens  to  be  tried  in  the  latter 
State,  on  an  indictment  for  assisting  in  the  escape 
of  slaves.  The  person  thus  arrested  —  JOHN  B. 
MAHAN,  a  local  minister  in  the  Methodist  Episco 
pal  Church  —  had  not  been  in  Kentucky  for  nine 
teen  years  !  Yet  "  he  was  torn  from  his  family, 
hurried  to  Kentucky,  and  shut  up  in  jail,  with 
out  allowing  him  time  to  procure  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  or  summon  evidence  in  his  defence.  He 
was  tried  at  the  Circuit  Court  of  Kentucky,  in 
Marion  County,  the  18th  of  November.  It  was 
admitted  by  the  Attorney  for  the  Commonwealth 
that  the  prisoner  was  a  citizen  of  Ohio,  and  not  in 
Kentucky  at  the  time  of  the  alleged  offence ;  yet 
he  made  an  effort  to  procure  his  conviction.  The 
jury  returned  a  verdict  of  not  guilty."  *  Yet  it 
had  continually  been  said,  by  those  who  would 
suppress  agitation,  that  we  at  the  North  have 

*  Goodell,  pp.  410  -  415,  440. 


THE   OPPOSITION  BY   STATES.  125 

nothing  to  do  with  slavery !  Nothing  to  do  with 
it!  when,  before  the  date  even  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Bill,  innocent  men  were  liable  to  be  arrest 
ed,  or  kidnapped,  by  its  emissaries,  and  dragged 
before  the  dubious  justice  embodied  in  a  Southern 
court ! 


VIII. 

THE   OPPOSITION  BY  THE  FEDERAL  POWER. 

WHILE  the  States  were  agitating  the  question  of 
suppressing  the  slavery  discussion  by  statutes,  the 
Federal  government — faithful  to  that  uniform  pol 
icy  which  had  acquired  the  character  of  an  instinct 
—  arrayed  itself  on  the  side  of  despotism.  "  The 
occasion  for  exerting  this  influence  was  presented 
by  the  excitement  growing  out  of  the  transmission 
of  anti-slavery  publications  through  the  United 
States  mails.  Some  of  these  publications  were 
gratuitously  sent,  —  not  to  any  portion  of  the  col 
ored  people,  either  the  free  or  the  enslaved,  —  but 
to  prominent  citizens,  statesmen,  clergymen,  mer 
chants,  planters,  and  professional  gentlemen  at  the 
South,  whose  names  and  residences  were  known  at 
the  North.  There  could  be  no  reasonable  pretence 
that  this  measure  could  excite  an  insurrection  of 
the  slaves.  GENERAL  DUFF  GREEN,  editor  of  TJie 
Washington  Telegraph, — one  of  the  most  violent 
opposers  of  the  Abolitionists, —  admitted  that  there 
was  little  or  no  danger  of  this  ;  and  that  the  real 
ground  of  apprehension  was,  that  the  publications 
would  *  operate  upon  the  consciences  and  fears  of 
slave-holders  themselves,  from  the  insinuation  of 


THE   OPPOSITION  BY   THE   FEDERAL  POWER.      127 

their  dangerous  heresies  into  our  schools,  our  pul 
pits,  and  our  domestic  circles.'  <  It  is  only,'  said 
he,  '  by  alarming  the  consciences  of  the  weak  and 
feeble,  and  by  diffusing  among  our  own  people  a 
morbid  sensibility  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  that 
Abolitionists  can  accomplish  their  object.' ' 

On  the  29th  of  July,  1835,  a  riotous  mob  broke 
into  the  post-office  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina, 
violated  the  United  States  mail,  and  destroyed  cer 
tain  anti-slavery  publications  found  there.  From 
an  editorial  allusion  to  the  outrage  in  the  Courier, 
it  seems  that  "  arrangements  had  previously  been 
made  at  the  post-office  in  the  city  to  arrest  the 
circulation  of  incendiary  matter,  until  instructions 
could  be  received  from  the  Post-Office  Department 
at  Washington."  It  would  have  appeared  most 
expedient,  in  any  law-abiding  community,  to  have 
waited  for  the  "  instructions  "  before  violating  the 
mail.  But  the  people  of  Charleston  were  evi 
dently  assured  that  any  act  they  might  perpetrate 
in  the  interest  of  slavery,  however  illegal,  would 
be  favorably  construed  at  Washington.  The  event 
showed  that  they  were  not  mistaken.  In  reply  to 
the  application  for  instructions,  the  Postmaster- 
General,  AMOS  KENDALL,  said  he  was  satisfied  that 
he  "  had  no  legal  authority  to  exclude  newspapers 
from  the  mail,  nor  to  prohibit  their  carriage  or 
delivery  on  account  of  their  character  or  ten 
dency,  real  or  supposed."  The  anti-slavery  papers, 
then,  were  clearly  entitled  to  be  transmitted 
through  the  mails.  What  then  ?  MR.  KENDALL 


128  OUR  POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

continues :  "  BUT  I  am  not  prepared  to  direct  you 
to  forward  or  deliver  the  papers  of  which  you 
speak  !  "  "By  no  act  or  direction  of  mine,  official 
or  private,  could  I  be  induced  to  aid,  knowingly, 
in  giving  circulation  to  papers  of  this  description," 
—  although  he  had  just  confessed  that  he  had  no 
legal  authority  for  excluding  them  from  the  mails. 
"  We  owe  an  obligation  to  the  laws,"  MR.  KENDALL 
proceeds  to  admit,  "  but  a  higher  one  to  the  com 
munities  in  which  we  live ;  and  if  the  former  be 
permitted  to  destroy  the  latter,  it  is  patriotism  to 
disregard  them."  That  is  to  say,  if  a  law  of  the 
United  States,  which  that  official  was  sworn  to  see 
executed,  threatened  to  endanger  the  immunities 
of  slavery,  he  advised  that  "  a  higher  obligation  " 
required  that  it  be  disregarded  !  Thus  we  find  the 
"  higher  law  "  actually  invoked,  in  the  interest  of 
slavery,  against  a  law  of  the  United  States. 

Encouraged  by  the  example  of  the  postmaster 
at  Charleston,  and  by  the  avowed  decision  of  the 
Postmaster-General  to  wink  at  all  similar  outrages, 
other  postmasters,  North  as  well  as  South,  lawlessly 
excluded  anti-slavery  writings  from  the  mails. 

To  crown  the  formidable  coalition  against  the 
cause  of  Freedom,  PRESIDENT  JACKSON,  in  his  an 
nual  message  (December,  1835),  called  "  the  spe 
cial  attention  of  Congress  to  the  subject,"  and 
recommended  the  passage  of  a  penal  law  against 
the  circulation  of  anti-slavery  publications  in  the 
Southern  States. 


IX. 


FINAL    STRUGGLE    AND    TRIUMPHANT    ASSERTION    OF 
FREEDOM  IN  THE  NORTH. 


THE  most  gloomy  presages  ushered  in  the  winter 
of  1835-36.  It  was  generally  expected  that  the 
action  recommended  by  the  South  to  the  Northern 
Legislatures,  and  by  the  President  to  Congress, 
would  be  adopted.  No  remonstrance  was  uttered, 
no  sign  of  alarm  was  expressed,  on  the  part  of  the 
Northern  community,  except  by  the  proscribed  and 
feeble  party  who  were  apparently  marked  for  de 
struction.  They,  conscious  that  everything  was  at 
stake,  girded  themselves  for  a  final  effort. 

The  Executive  Committee  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  at  New  York  drew  up  a  solemn 
protest,  involving  a  thorough  review  of  the  charges 
preferred  in  the  President's  Message,  and  addressed 
to  the  Chief  Magistrate.  In  that  paper  they  repelled 
the  charge  of  insurrectionary  designs.  "  They  in 
vited  investigation  by  a  Committee  of  Congress, 
and  offered  to  submit  to  their  inspection  all  their 
publications,  all  their  correspondence,  and  all  their 
accounts,  —  promising  to  attest  them,  and  to  an 
swer  every  question  under  oath."  *  The  Presi- 

*  Goodell,  p.  417. 
6*  I 


130  OUR  POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

dent  never  noticed  this  remonstrance ;  but  it  is 
probable  that  the  firm  and  dignified  tone  in  which 
it  was  expressed  had  its  due  effect  upon  the  Execu 
tive  mind.  Neither  JACKSON  nor  any  of  his  suc 
cessors,  it  is  believed,  ever  repeated  the  charges 
contained  in  his  Message,  and  so  boldly  met  in 
that  protest. 

In  February,  1836,  a  Convention  met  at  Provi- 
dence,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  Rhode  Island 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  in  response  to  "  a  call  of 
respectable  citizens  in  all  parts  of  the  State.  It 
was  numerously  attended,  well  sustained,  and  did 
much  to  revive  the  spirit  of  ROGER  WILLIAMS  in 
that  part  of  New  England." 

The  most  imposing  conflict  of  the  season  took 
place  in  Massachusetts.  A  joint  committee  of 
both  branches  of  the  Legislature,  with  SENATOR 
LUNT  Chairman,  had  been  appointed  to  consider 
the  Southern  demands.  A  request  of  the  Aboli 
tionists  to  enjoy  the  customary  hearing  before  this 
committee  had  received  no  attention,  and  it  was 
believed  that  the  committee  would  report  without 
listening  to  their  defence.  "  The  Anti-Slavery 
Committee  at  Boston  were  at  length  unexpect 
edly  notified  that  an  audience  would  be  given 
them  the  very  next  day,  March  4th,  1836.  They 
hastily  rallied,  selected  their  advocates,  and  pre 
pared  for  their  defence.  The  interview  was  held 
in  the  Representatives'  Hall,  neither  of  the  houses 
being  in  session,  but  most  of  the  members  of  both 
houses  and  many  prominent  citizens  being  pres- 


TRIUMPHANT   ASSERTION   OF   FREEDOM.          131 

ent.  After  remarks  by  REV.  SAMUEL  J.  MAY  and 
ELLIS  GRAY  LORING,  ESQ.,  they  were  followed  by 
PROFESSOR  CHARLES  FOLLEN,  who,  in  the  course  of 
his  remarks,  alluded  to  the  recent  outrages  against 
Abolitionists,  observing  that  any  legislative  enact 
ments  or  censures  against  the  already  persecuted 
party  would  tend  to  encourage  their  assailants 
and  increase  their  persecutions.  Taking  offence 
at  this  remark,  the  Chairman,  MR.  LUNT,  silenced 
PROFESSOR  FOLLEN,  and  abruptly  terminated  the 
interview ;  whereupon  the  Abolitionists  took  prompt 
measures  for  issuing  their  suppressed  defence  in  a 
pamphlet  form,  which,  comprising  above  forty 
pages,  was  prepared  for  the  press  in  the  two  fol 
lowing  days.  A  Boston  editor,  BENJAMIN  F.  HAL- 
LET,  ESQ.,  gave  some  account  of  the  proceedings, 
and  said  the  Abolitionists  were  entitled  to  a  fail- 
hearing.  The  Legislature  directed  their  committee 
to  allow  a  completion  of  the  defence,  which  was 
accordingly  notified  for  Monday  P.  M.,  the  8th 
instant.  The  adjacent  country  was  by  this  time 
roused,  and  the  Hall  of  the  Representatives  was 
crowded.  PROFESSOR  FOLLEN  concluded  his  speech, 
and  was  followed  by  SAMUEL  E.  SEW  ALL,  ESQ., 
WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON,  and  WILLIAM  GOODELL, 
—  the  latter  of  whom,  instead  of  making  any  fur 
ther  defence  of  Abolitionists,  or  proving  that  their 
publications  were  not  insurrectionary,  proceeded 
to  charge  upon  the  Southern  States,  who  had 
made  these  demands,  a  conspiracy  against  the  lib 
erties  of  the  free  North.  This  opened  an  entire 


132  OUR   POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

new  field.  Great  uneasiness  was  manifested  by 
the  committee ;  but  the  speaker  —  though  repeat 
edly  interrupted  by  the  Chairman  —  succeeded  in 
quoting  the  language  of  GOVERNOR  McDuFFiE's 
message,  and  in  characterizing  the  Southern  docu 
ments  lying  on  the  table  of  the  committee  before 
him  as  being  fetters  for  Northern  freemen.  He 
had  commenced  making  the  inquiry,  'Mr.  Chair 
man,  are  you  prepared  to  attempt  putting  them 
on  ?  '  but  the  sentence  was  only  half  finished  when 
the  stentorian  voice  of  the  Chairman  interrupted 
him :  '  Sit  down,  sir  ! '  —  He  sat  down.  The  Leg 
islative  Committee  presently  began  to  move  from 
their  seats,  but  the  audience  sat  petrified  with  sup 
pressed  feeling.  The  late  DR.  WILLIAM  E.  CHAN- 
NING  was  seated  among  the  Abolitionists,  though 
not  in  form  or  in  sentiment  fully  identified  with 
them.  On  such  an  occasion  he  could  not  be  ab 
sent,  and  his  presence  was  felt.  His  countenance 
seemed  to  express  what  words  could  not  have 
uttered ;  more  eloquent  in  silence  than  even  he 
could  have  been  in  speech.  The  Legislative  Com 
mittee  themselves  lingered,  as  in  vague  expecta 
tion.  Then  rose  a  respectable  merchant  of  Boston, 
MR.  BOND,  unaccustomed,  as  he  said,  to  public 
speaking,  and  begged  the  committee  to  wait  a  few 
minutes.  It  was  growing  dark,  and  the  hall  was 
unlighted,  but  they  sat  down.  MR.  BOND  briefly 
reminded  them  that  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the 
press  could  never  be  surrendered  by  the  sons  of 
the  Pilgrims.  He  was  followed  by  another  volun- 


TRIUMPHANT   ASSERTION   OF   FREEDOM.          133 

teer,  DR.  BRADFORD,  from  old  Plymouth  Rock." 
The  committee  finally  rose,  and,  with  the  audience, 
slowly  retired  from  the  room.  "  A  low  murmur 
of  voices,"  sounding  through  the  dim  hall,  indi 
cated  the  awakened  sympathies  of  the  assembly, 
and,  "  like  the  distant  roar  of  the  sea,  told  of 
power.  Three  days  afterward,  the  printed  plea 
of  the  Abolitionists  was  on  the  desk  of  each  mem 
ber  of  the  Legislature,  in  the  hands  of  the  Gov 
ernor,  and  in  process  of  circulation  through  the 
Commonwealth.  MR.  LUNT  and  his  committee 
delayed  their  Report  till  near  the  close  of  the  ses 
sion,  several  weeks  later.  It  was  a  stale  repetition 
of  trite  declamation  on  the  subject,  but  recom 
mending  no  distinct  action  by  the  Legislature."* 

Similar  attempts  in  other  Northern  legislatures 
to  enact  laws  prohibiting  the  discussion  of  slavery 
likewise  failed.  The  tide  was  beginning  to  be 
effectually  turned. 

The  proposition  of  PRESIDENT  JACKSON  to  Con 
gress  for  a  prohibitory  law  was  referred  to  a 
select  committee,  of  which  JOHN  C.  CALHOUN  was 
Chairman.  That  committee  submitted  a  Report, 
February  4,  1836,  in  which  it  was  maintained  that 
the  measure  suggested  by  the  President  would 
involve  a  violation  of  the  Constitution,  and  an 
infringement  of  the  liberties  of  the  people,  as 
well  as  a  remote  danger  to  slavery  itself.  The 
Report  then  proceeded  to  recommend  that  the 
STATES  be  authorized  to  prohibit  the  circulation 

*  Goodell  (himself  a  prominent  actor  in  the  scene),  pp.  418-420. 


134  OUR   POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

of  such  publications  as  may  be  "  calculated  to 
disturb  their  security";  and  that  the  Federal 
postmasters  be  forbidden  to  deliver  any  publica 
tions  touching  the  subject  of  slavery  in  those 
States  that  may  prohibit  their  circulation.  A  bill, 
drafted  by  the  committee,  in  accordance  with  its 
own  recommendation,  was  defeated  on  the  final 
vote. 

Here  ended  the  efforts  of  the  slave-holders  to 
instal  their  despotism  over  the  mails.  But  the 
opponents  of  their  project  did  not  rest  till  they 
had  secured  the  passage  of  an  act,  at  the  same 
session,  imder  the  signature  of  the  President,  pro 
hibiting  any  such  arbitrary  measure,  in  future, 
by  severe  penalties.  The  triumph  of  the  friends 
of  freedom  was  graced  by  the  confession  of  MR. 
CALHOUN,  at  the  same  session,  that  the  efforts  of 
the  Abolitionists  were  of  a  moral  and  peaceful 
nature,  and  not,  in  his  judgment,  designed  to 
provoke  violence  and  insurrection.* 

As  the  tide  of  reform  could  not  be  arrested 
either  by  mobs  or  prescriptive  legislation,  the 
final  expedient  of  despotism  was  to  crush  the 
right  of  petition,  and  close  the  door  of  Congress 
to  the  great  discussion.  The  right  of  Congress 
to  abolish  slavery  in  the  Federal  District  and 
Territories,  and  to  prohibit  the  domestic  slave- 
trade,  was  extensively  held  ;  and  the  Abolition 
ists  had  persistently  petitioned  both  houses  to 

*  Goodell,  pp.  421,  422. 


TRIUMPHANT   ASSERTION  OF   FREEDOM.          135 

exercise  their  constitutional  powers  over  these 
evils.  In  order  to  exclude  these  dangerous  in 
fluences,  the  slave  power  in  Congress  procured 
the  adoption  of  a  series  of  measures,  known  as 
the  "  gag-laws,"  which  continued  binding  from 
May,  1836,  to  December,  1845.  The  efforts  of 
JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  to  restore  the  right  of  peti 
tion  deserve  special  mention.  They  constitute 
the  crowning  glory  of  his  public  life,  as  their 
success  signalized  the  final  triumph  of  the  prin 
ciple  of  freedom,  in  the  North,  over  the  ignoble 
coalition  formed  to  overthrow  it. 


X. 


NEW  POLITICAL   ORGANIZATIONS.  —  THE    REPUBLICAN 
PARTY. 

DECISIVE  issue  having  been  thus  taken  with 
the  Southern  despotism,  and  the  right  to  discuss 
the  evils  of  slavery  being  thus  triumphantly  sus 
tained,  the  organization  of  new  political  parties 

—  in   order  to    give   expression   at  the   polls   to 
the   new  convictions   springing  up  at  the   North 

—  became  an  inevitable  consequence.     The  Lib 
erty  party,  the  Free-Soil  party,  and  the  Repub 
lican   party,   represent   the    successive   stages   of 
political   action  that  were   developed  in  the  pro 
gress  of   the   great   reform   inaugurated  by   the 
Abolitionists. 

Meantime  the  original  anti-slavery  organizations 
became  divided,  and  extensively  modified,  under 
the  action  of  an  irresistible  individualism  in  some 
of  the  leaders,  and  as  new  exigencies  appeared 
to  call  for  new  measures.  Those  iron  bodies 
which  had  so  gallantly  sustained  the  hostility  of 
a  degenerate  nation  became  prolific  in  issues, 
in  controversies,  and  in  dissent ;  and  were  in 
some  danger  of  surrendering  to  faction  part  of 
the  honors  they  had  extorted  -from  tyranny. 


NEW  POLITICAL   ORGANIZATIONS.  137 

In  1844,  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
under  the  intrepid  guidance  of  MR.  GARRISON 
and  the  caustic  eloquence  of  WENDELL  PHILLIPS, 
proclaimed  the  new  watchword,  "  No  UNION  WITH 
SLAVE-HOLDERS,"  and  denounced  the  Federal  Con 
stitution  as  "  a  covenant  with  death  and  an  agree 
ment  with  hell."  This  new  position  cost  the 
Society  many  of  its  members  ;  and  it  is  believed 
that  a  large  majority  of  the  Abolitionists  still 
hold  that  the  Constitution  is  essentially  a  cove 
nant  with  freedom,  and  that  it  is  perverted  when 
so  construed  as  to  sanction  any  interest  of  des 
potism. 

The  sentiment  which  animated  the  first  reform 
ers,  in  their  vigorous  assault  upon  the  slave 
power,  became  deteriorated  as  it  spread  among 
the  multitudes  of  the  North,  till  the  feeling  which 
had  originally  demanded  the  immediate  abolition 
of  slavery  became  content  with  prohibiting  its 
extension.  The  anti-slavery  sentiment,  thus  de 
teriorated,  obtained  a  rapid  ascendency  over  the 
free  States.  The  entire  vote  of  the  Liberty  party 
at  the  Presidential  election  of  1840  amounted  to 
something  less  than  7,000.  Four  years  later,  the 
candidates  of  that  party  received  upwards  of 
60,000  votes ;  although  it  was  well  understood, 
that  on  neither  occasion  did  the  nominees  of 
the  party  receive  the  votes  of  more  than  a  frac 
tion  of  the  nominal  Abolitionists  in  the  United 
States,  —  some  hundreds  of  them  avoiding  the 
polls  from  conscientious  scruples,  and  the  ma- 


138  OUR  POLITICAL  REGENERATION. 

jority,  influenced  by  old  political  ties,  giving  their 
support  to  the  Whig  and  Democratic  candidates. 
When,  in  1848,  the  Buffalo  Platform  appeared, 
minus  the  Abolition  plank,  it  became  at  once 
evident  that  it  would  conciliate  an  augmented 
anti-slavery  vote.  The  vote  of  the  Free-Soil 
party  that  year,  and  of  the  Republican  party 
in  1856,  revealed  an  auspicious  growth  of  the 
diluted  anti-slavery  sentiment  which  the  North 
was  prepared  to  express  ;  and  in  1860  two  mil 
lions  of  Electors,  in  the  face  of  the  frantic  threat 
of  Disunion,  solemnly  decided  that  slavery  should 
never  again  be  extended  under  the  flag  of  the 
nation. 


XI. 

CONSIDERATIONS. 

WHETHER  the  Republican  Party,  in  securing 
this  decisive  ascendency  over  the  Northern  mind, 
was  obliged  to  take  a  lower  moral  position  than 
the  radical  Abolitionists,  —  refusing  to  regard  slav 
ery  as  a  crime  per  se^  like  murder  or  theft,  but 
treating  it  as  a  social  and  political  error,  a 
source  of  practical  evils  deplorable  and  self-de 
structive,  and  a  clear  violation  of  those  enlight 
ened  principles  embodied  in  our  form  of  govern 
ment, —  we  do  not  propose  to  inquire.  Whether, 
instead  of  advocating  immediate  and  unconditional 
emancipation,  it  was  wise  in  conceding  to  the 
South  the  common  interpretation  of  the  Consti 
tution,  under  which  slavery  in  the  States  is  be 
lieved  to  be  protected,  we  shall  not  here  discuss. 
And  whether,  in  going  no  further  than  to  insist 
that  the  Federal  Government  should  be  divorced 
from  the  slave-holding  propaganda,  that  slavery 
should  be  restricted  to  its  present  limits,  and 
that  its  actual  extinction  should  be  left  to  the 
process  of  time,  under  the  subduing  force  of 
moral  and  economical  agencies,  the  party  made 
the  strongest  possible  appeaj  to  the  judgment  and 


140  OUR  POLITICAL   REGENERATION. 

conscience  of  the  American  people,  is  not  the 
question  for  present  examination. 

In  consenting  to  such  a  disposal  of  the  sub 
ject,  there  is.  no  doubt  that  a  large  proportion 
of  that  party  made  some  compromise  between 
their  principles  and  the  exigency  of  the  time. 
It  seemed  the  only  ground  on  which  the  North 
could  cordially  unite,  and  the  Republic  be  de 
livered  from  the  pro-slavery  dynasty.  It  was  not 
what  the  more  earnest  and  enlightened  members 
of  the  party  wanted,  we  believe,  but  it  seemed 
to  comprise  all  that  could  be  secured  by  un 
doubted  constitutional  means. 

Hence  the  party  were  content  to  accept  it  as 
the  best  result  attainable,  under  all  the  circum 
stances, — trusting  that  a  new  administration  con 
scientiously  devoted  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
nation,  and  of  necessity  hostile  to  the  sectional 
purposes  of  slavery,  might  introduce  a  Federal 
policy,  which,  uniting  with  all  the  better  ten 
dencies  of  the  Republic,  should  peacefully  abol 
ish  the  great  crime  of  the  land. 

Still,  it  was  placing  the  subject,  at  best,  where 
the  fathers  had  left  it ;  and  IGNORING  THE  DREAD 
FUL  LESSON  WHICH  THEIR  TOLERATION  OP  SLAVERY 

HAD  TAUGHT,  and  which  the  nation,  one  would 
have  supposed,  should  have  laid  to  heart.  It  was 

RELYING  UPON  THE  SAME  FALLACIOUS  GUARANTIES 
WHICH  HAD  DECEIVED  THE  FOUNDERS  OF  THE  GOV 
ERNMENT,  AND  ALLOWING  SLAVERY  ANOTHER  CHANCE 

TO  SUBJUGATE  THE  REPUBLIC.      The  architects  of 


CONSIDERATIONS.  141 

the  Union  had  erected  a  barrier  to  the  progress 
of  slavery,  which  the  exulting  despotism  had  tri 
umphantly  scaled,  and  the  highest  political  wisdom 
of  the  country,  enlightened  by  the  experience  of 
eighty  years,  could  devise  no  better  security  for 
freedom  than  to  rebuild  the  very  WALL  which 
slavery,  with  not  one  tenth  of  its  present  vigor, 
had  been  able  to  batter  down. 

The  question  will  rise  in  the  thoughtful  mind, 
whether  —  had  the  South  been  content  to  abide 
the  decision  of  the  American  people  in  1860  — 
the  instincts  of  slavery,  so  long  active  in  the 
government,  might  not  have  been  too  potent  for 
the  integrity  of  the  new  administration,  —  aided 
by  the  advantage  it  still  retained  in  both  houses 
of  Congress,  —  and  whether  the  fair  hopes  built 
upon  MR.  LINCOLN'S  elevation  to  the  Presidency, 
might  not  have  withered  in  the  distant  result. 

Possibly  our  fond  assurance  might  have  proved 
our  snare.  Possibly  Providence  was  more  merci 
ful  to  the  land  than  it  seemed,  in  releasing  the 
wild-fire  of  rebellion.  Possibly  the  Divine  Omnis 
cience  perceived  that  the  only  road  to  national 
emancipation  and  permanent  security  led  through 
the  searching  ordeal  of  civil  war. 


PART    IV. 

THE   REBELLION  OF  THE  BARONS 


"  The  well-known  opinions  of  the  Fathers  were  all  discarded,  and  it 
was  recklessly  avowed  that  slavery  is  a  divine  institution,  —  the  high 
est  type  of  civilization,  —  a  blessing  to  master  and  slave  alike,  —  and 
the  very  keystone  of  our  national  arch.  A  generation  has  grown  up 
with  this  teaching,  so  that  it  is  now  ready  to  say,  with  Satan, 

'  Evil,  be  thou  my  good ;  by  thee  at  least 
Divided  empire  with  Heaven's  King  I  hold; 
As  man  erelong  and  this  new  world  shall  know.'  " 

HON.  CHARLES  SUMNER. 

"  To  humor  the  present  disposition  and  temporize,  is  a  certain,  abso 
lutely  certain  confirmation  of  the  evil.  No  nation  ever  did,  or  ever 
can,  recover  from  slavery  by  such  methods."  —  CHARLES  JAMES  Fox, 
1804. 

"  Slavery  is  a  system  made  up  of  every  crime  that  treachery, 
cruelty,  and  murder  can  invent."  —  REV.  ROWLAND  HILL. 

"  Slavery  is  a  complicated  system  of  iniquity."  —  GRANVILLE 
SHARP. 


"Whatever  is  morally  wrong  cannot  be  politically  right." — JEF- 


"  By  the  law  of  God,  unchangeable  and  eternal,  while  men  despise 
fraud,  and  loathe  rapine,  and  abhor  bloodshed,  they  shall  reject  with 
indignation  the  wild  and  guilty  fantasy,  that  man  can  hold  property 
in  man."  —  LORD  BROUGHAM,  1830. 

"  While  slavery  lasts,  it  must  continue,  in  addition  to  the  actual 
amount  of  suffering  and  wrong  which  it  entails  on  the  enslaved,  to 
operate  with  terrible  reaction  on  the  dominant  class,  to  blunt  the 
moral  sense,  to  sap  domestic  virtue,  to  degrade  independent  industry, 
to  check  the  onward  march  of  enterprise,  to  sow  the  seeds  of  sus 
picion,  alarm,  and  vengeance,  in  both  internal  and  external  inter 
course,  to  distract  the  national  counsels,  to  threaten  the  permanence 
of  the  Union,  and  to  leave  a  brand,  a  byword,  and  a  jest  upon  the 
name  of  Freedom."  —  EARL  OF  CARLISLE,  1851. 


I. 


THE  PLOT  OF  AARON  BURR. 

THE  rebellion,  whose  complete  maturity  and 
prolific  resources  appalled  the  nation  during  the 
revelations  of  the  past  winter  (1860  -  61)  is  now 
known  to  be  the  product  of  assiduous  intrigues, 
extending  through  not  less  than  thirty  years. 
And  this  great  and  criminal  enterprise  of  our 
day  really  connects  itself  —  not  unnaturally  — 
with  certain  alarming  transactions  that  startled 
the  quietude  of  the  country  as  far  back  as  1807. 

The  arrest  of  COLONEL  AARON  BURR,  that  year, 
on  charge  of  high  treason,  sent  a  thrill  of  amaze 
ment  through  the  entire  country.  The  eminent 
position  of  the  accused,  the  turpitude  of  the  al 
leged  crime,  and  the  probable  magnitude  to  which 
the  conspiracy  had  attained,  all  tended  to  inspire 
a  deep  and  far-reaching  sensation.  Nor  were  the 
circumstances  attending  the  trial  and  acquittal 
of  BURR  less  surprising  than  the  crime  which 
had  been  charged  upon  him.  In  the  light  of 
the  full-grown  conspiracy  of  the  present  day,  the 
memorable  plot  of  1807  may  receive  a  more  com 
plete  elucidation. 

A  shining  character  in  every  position  he  had 


146  THE  REBELLION   OF   THE   BARONS. 

occupied, — a  skilful  military  man,  an  adroit  poli 
tician,  an  accomplished  actor  in  society,  —  COLO 
NEL  BURR  had  been  separated  from  the  Presi 
dency  by  only  a  single  vote  ;  and  had  occupied, 
under  MR.  JEFFERSON,  the  second  official  dignity 
in  the  executive  department  of  the  Republic.  Un 
able  to  cope  with  the  popularity  of  JEFFERSON, 
BURR  became  alienated  from  the  Democratic  party. 
Aware  of  his  changed  feelings,  a  portion  of  the 
Federal  party  in  the  State  of  New  York  began 
to  esteem  him  an  available  candidate  for  the  office 
of  Governor.  But  GENERAL  HAMILTON,  a  lead 
ing  Federalist,  opposed  the  nomination  of  BURR, 
and  denounced  him  as  a  man  "  dangerous  to  the 
country."  For  having  used  this  language,  HAM 
ILTON  was  shot  dead  in  a  duel,  having  accepted 
a  challenge  from  COLONEL  BURR.  Whether  the 
strong  expression  HAMILTON  had  employed  in 
allusion  to  his  antagonist  was  only  the  utter 
ance  of  partisan  or  personal  antipathy,  or  whether 
it  indicated  an  actual  knowledge,  or  strong  sus 
picion,  of  his  treasonable  purposes,  —  as  many 
were  afterwards  inclined  to  believe,  —  cannot  now 
be  ascertained.  It  appears  certain,  however,  from 
what  was  proved  at  the  trial,  and  from  guarded 
disclosures  subsequently  made,  that  BURR  about 
this  time  was  in  the  habit  of  making  secret  over 
tures  to  prominent  men,  and  revealing  the  vague 
outlines  of  a  gigantic  scheme  of  disunion  and  con 
quest,  to  culminate  in  a  magnificent  Southern 
Empire.  It  is  not  known  how  far  he  obtained 


THE  PLOT  OF  AARON  BURR.         147 

assurances  of  co-operation,  for  most  of  the  evi 
dence  —  as  we  shall  presently  see  —  was  sup 
pressed,  and  those  who  declined  to  participate  in 
his  plans  seem  to  have  been  restrained  from  di 
vulging  them. 

The  plot  was  exposed  by  the  following  means :  — 
GENERAL  WILLIAM  EATON,  of  Massachusetts,  had 
been  American  Consul  at  Tunis  during  our  war 
with  the  Barbary  States.  In  an  expedition  against 
Tripoli,  which  he  had  been  authorized  by  his  gov 
ernment  to  lead,  he  had  won  a  brilliant  reputation 
for  military  genius  and  personal  bravery,  and  had 
honorably  terminated  our  naval  war  in  the  Medi 
terranean.  GENERAL  EATON  had  returned  to  Amer 
ica,  a  lauded  hero,  worthy  of  the  honors  he  wore. 
But,  being  a  New  Ehglander  and  a  Federalist,  he 
had  received  but  a  cool  reception  at  the  seat  of 
government.  Certain  sentiments  hostile  to  slav 
ery,  which  he  had  communicated  in  letters  to  his 
wife,  and  which  had  found  their  way  into  the 
newspapers,  are  said  to  have  created  a  prejudice 
against  him  at  the  South,  and  to  have  influenced 
the  government  in  its  churlish  recognition  of  his 
services.  His  accounts  were  disputed  and  dis 
allowed,  his  integrity  aspersed,  and  the  basest 
attempts  were  made  to  dishonor  him  in  the  esti 
mation  of  his  country.  Triumphantly  vindicated 
from  all  the  charges,  but  reduced  by  the  govern 
ment  he  had  served  to  bankruptcy,  he  had  retired 
in  disgust  from  the  public  service. 

In  this  mood  he  was  approached  by  COLONEL 


148  THE   REBELLION   OF   THE   BARONS. 

BURR,  who  — judging  him  by  his  own  standard  of 
hc/nor,  and  counting  on  his  willingness  to  resent 
his  injuries  —  proceeded  to  unfold  his  scheme. 
"  He  told  EATON  that  he  had  already  organized  a 
secret  expedition  against  the  Spanish  provinces 
of  Mexico,  in  which  he  asked  him  to  join ;  and 
EATON,  under  the  impression,  as  he  said,  that  the 
expedition  was  secretly  countenanced  by  govern 
ment —  to  which  the  state  of  Spanish  relations 
and  the  Miranda  expedition,  then  on  foot,  might 
well  give  color  —  gave  him  encouragement  that  he 
would.  BURR  then  proceeded  to  further  confiden 
ces,  such  as  excited  suspicions  in  EATON'S  mind  as 
to  the  real  character  of  his  intended  enterprise. 

"Wishing,  according  to  his  own  account,  to 

draw  BURR  out,  EATON  encouraged  him  to  go  on, 
till  finally  he  developed  a  project  for  revolution 
izing  the  Western  country,  separating  it  from  the 
Union,  and  establishing  a  monarchy,  of  which  he 
was  to  be  sovereign ;  New  Orleans  to  be  his  capi 
tal  ;  and  his  dominion  to  be  further  extended  by  a 
force  organized  on  the  Mississippi,  so  as  to  include 
a  part  or  the  whole  of  Mexico." 

He  represented  that  GENERAL  WILKINSON,  the 
commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  and  recently  ap 
pointed  Governor  of  the  Louisiana  Territory,  had 
become  a  party  to  the  enterprise.  "  There  was  no 
energy  in  the  government  to  be  dreaded,"  it  hav 
ing  become  already  paralyzed  by  party  divisions. 
"  Many  enterprising  men,  who  aspired  to  some 
thing  beyond  the  dull  pursuits  of  civil  life,"  were 


THE  PLOT  OF  AARON  BURR.        149 

ready  to  unite  in  the  undertaking.  "  The  promise 
of  an  immediate  distribution  of  land,  with  the 
mines  of  Mexico  in  prospect,  would  call  multi 
tudes  to  his  standard.  Warming  up  with  the  sub 
ject,  he  declared  that,  if  he  could  only  secure  the 
Marine  Corps  —  the  only  soldiers  stationed  at 
Washington  —  and  gain  over  the  naval  command 
ers,  TRUXTON,  PREBLE,  DECATUR,  and  others,  he 
would  turn  Congress  neck  and  heels  out  of  doors, 
assassinate  the  President,  seize  on  the  treasury  and 
navy,  and  declare  himself  the  protector  of  an  ener 
getic  government.  To  which  EATON,  according 
to  his  own  statement,  replied,  that  one  single  word, 
USURPER,  would  destroy  him,  and  that,  though  he 
might  succeed  at  Washington  in  the  first  instance, 
within  six  weeks  after  he  would  have  his  throat 
cut  by  the  Yankee  militia."* 

GENERAL  EATON  lost  no  time  in  communicating 
BURR'S  designs  to  the  government ;  but,  not  enjoy 
ing  the  favor  of  the  Administration,  his  important 
disclosures  appear  to  have  made  no  considerable 
impression,  until  confirmed  by  a  despatch  from 
GENERAL  WILKINSON.  In  due  time,  BURR,  BLEN- 
NERHASSET,  and  other  supposed  accomplices,  were 
arrested,  and  brought  to  trial  under  an  indictment 
for  high  treason  found  by  a  Grand  Jury  for  the 
District  of  Virginia.  CHIEF  JUSTICE  MARSHALL 
presided,  holding  the  court  in  conjunction  with 
GRIFFIN,  the  District  Judge. 

BURR  was  charged  first  with  high  treason ;   and 

*  Hildreth's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  V.  pp.  600,  601. 


150  THE  REBELLION   OF  THE  BARONS. 

second  with  a  high  misdemeanor,  in  attempting 
the  invasion  of  Mexico,  a  Spanish  province.  The 
testimony  of  EATON  and  WILKINSON,  it  was  gener 
ally  supposed,  would  convict  him  ;  but  theirs  com 
prised  but  a  fractional  part  of  the  testimony  in 
the  hands  of  the  prosecuting  attorney.  Attempts 
were  made  to  destroy  the  credit  of  both  these  wit 
nesses,  but  without  success.  The  acquittal  was 
secured,  however,  by  what  has  the  appearance  of 
a  stratagem,  though  perhaps  no  artifice  was  in 
tended.  "  The  indictment  was  so  drawn  up  as  to 
charge  him  only  with  treasonable  acts  or  misde 
meanors  committed  by  him  on  Blennerhasset's 
Island,"  in  the  Ohio  River,  while  the  principal 
part  of  the  evidence  in  the  hands  of  the  prosecu 
tion  had  respect  to  acts  committed  elsewhere. 
Owing  to  this  form  of  the  indictment,  "  almost  all 
the  important  testimony  was  excluded  by  the  court 
from  coming  before  the  jury."  The  evidence 
of  BLENNERHASSET  was  likewise  excluded.  It  is 
thought  that  the  jury  suspected  the  court  of  some 
design  to  shield  the  accused,  judging  by  the  fol 
lowing  verdict,  which  was  read  by  COLONEL  CAR- 
RINGTON,  their  foreman :  "  We,  of  the  jury,  say 
that  AARON  BURR  is  not  proved  guilty  under 
this  indictment,  by  any  evidence  submitted  to  us. 
We  therefore  find  him  not  guilty."  To  this  ver 
dict  exceptions  were  taken,  for  the  reason  that 
it  seemed  to  "  censure  the  court  for  suppress 
ing  irrelevant  testimony."  But,  •  since  the  jury 
"would  not  agree  to  alter  it,  the  court  decided 


THE  PLOT  OF  AARON  BURR.        151 

that  the  verdict  should  remain  as  found,  and  that 
an  entry  should  be  made  on  the  record  of  not 
guilty."* 

The  acquittal  of  BURR  is  not  easily  explained  by 
any  facts  that  have  yet  been  brought  to  light.  The 
interest  created  by  the  trial  was  greatly  imbittered 
by  partisan  influences.  Many  of  the  Federalists, 
having  taken  BURR  into  favor,  and  not  being  dis 
posed,  perhaps,  to  censure  any  conspiracy  that 
threatened  ruin  to  the  Jefferson  government,  be 
came  zealous  champions  of  the  accused.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Democratic  party,  feeling  that  the 
honor  of  the  Administration  required  a  thorough 
ventilation  of  the  plot,  exerted  itself  to  procure  his 
conviction. 

The  progress  of  the  trial  gave  rise  to  many  ru 
mors,  which  the  dispassionate  historian  will  proba 
bly  disregard,  unless  subsequent  disclosures  shall 
lend  confirmation  to  some  of  them.  "  So  extensive 
and  so  powerful  was  the  conspiracy  found  to  be, 
and  so  wide-spread  appeared  to  be  the  sympathy 
of  the  South  with  the  prisoners,  that  it  was  feared 
at  one  time  during  the  trial  that,  whether  the  ar 
raigned  were  condemned  or  acquitted,  the  enter 
prise  would  in  some  way  be  resumed.  It  was 
currently  understood  that  prominent  men  at  the 
South,  who  were  as  deeply  implicated  as  COLONEL 
BURR,  and  who  were  in  fact  the  originators  of  the 

*  Burr's  Trial,  Reported  by  David  Robertson,  Esq.,  Vol.  EL  pp.  446, 
447. 


152  THE  REBELLION   OF  THE   BARONS. 

plot,  were  not  arrested  because  it  was  not  deemed 
prudent  to  proceed  further.  Among  other  rumors, 
one  was  that  COLONEL  BURR  was  about  to  turn 
state's  evidence  against  some  of  them,  to  procure 
indemnity  for  himself." 


II. 

THE  IMAGE  OF  A  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  — NULLIFICATION. 

WHETHER  the  South  was  extensively  implicated 
in  BURR'S  conspiracy  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  the 
image  of  a  Southern  Empire,  which  he  was  proba 
bly  the  first  to  evoke,  never  faded  from  the  South 
ern  imagination.  It  has  remained  from  that  day 
a  sort  of  political  and  social  ideal,  which  time  was 
to  fulfil,  and  the  genius  of  the  South  realize,  when 
ever  the  nation  should  decide  that  her  peculiar 
interest  was  no  longer  to  be  paramount  in  the 
Union.  From  the  earliest  intrigues  of  the  slave 
holders  for  the  dismemberment  of  Mexico  to  the 
late  efforts  of  WALKER  to  pioneer  slavery  into  Cen 
tral  America,  the  rapacious  craft  of  the  oligarchy 
has  been  aiming  at  the  organization  of  a  vast  pol 
ity  on  the  model  of  AARON  BURR'S  exploded  enter 
prise. 

In  every  epoch  of  sectional  excitement,  in  every 
period  of  discontent  with  the  Federal  Government, 
this  idea  of  separation  from  the  Republic,  and  the 
establishment  of  an  independent  confederacy,  has 
been  revived  and  propagated.  In  1818,  in  the 
great  struggle  on  the  Missouri  question,  the  disso 
lution  of  the  Union  was  threatened,  and  probably 

7* 


154  THE  KEBELLION   OF   THE   BARONS. 

meditated.  JEFFERSON  and  others  evidently  con 
sidered  the  disastrous  event  as  then  impending. 

In  1825,  when  the  State  of  Georgia  was  brought 
in  collision  with  the  Federal  Government  on  the 
question  of  making  war  upon  the  Indian  tribes,  the 
Southern  Confederacy  was  foreshadowed  in  lan 
guage  pregnant  with  insurrection.  "  The  hour  is 
come,  or  is  rapidly  approaching,  when  the  States 
from  Virginia  to  Georgia,  from  Missouri  to  Louisi 
ana,  must  CONFEDERATE,  and  as  one  man  say  to  the 
Union  :  '  We  will  no  longer  submit  our  constitu 
tional  rights  to  bad  men  in  Congress  or  on  judicial 
benches,' "  (the  Supreme  Court  not  having  then 
espoused  the  slave-holding  interest).  "  '  The  pow 
ers  necessary  to  the  protection  of  the  confederated 
States  from  enemies  without  and  within,  and  these 
alone,  were  confided  to  the  United  Government.' ' 

Again,  in  1830,  when  the  South  had  failed  to 
coerce  the  Federal  Government  into  a  reduction  or 
abolition  of  the  tariff,  South  Carolina,  under  the 
direction  of  MR.  CALHOUN,  then  Vice-President, 
ran  up  the  seditious  banner  of  Nullification,  "  for 
bade  all  levy  of  imposts  under  the  regulations  of 
the  tariff,  and  refused  to  recognize  the  appeal 
which  might  be  made  to  the  Federal  courts,  declar 
ing  that  South  Carolina  '  acknowledges  no  tribu 
nal  upon  earth  above  her  authority.' '  About  the 
time  of  the  passage  of  this  decree,  MR.  CALHOUN 
gave  expression  to  that  fruitful  sentence  which 
has  developed,  in  the  genial  atmosphere  of  the 
South,  into  the  practical  doctrine  of  Secession  : 


NULLIFICATION.  155 

"  The  Constitution  is  a  compact  to  which  the 
States  were  parties  in  their  SOVEREIGN  CAPACITY; 
now,  whenever  a  compact  is  entered  into  by  par 
ties  which  acknowledge  no  tribunal  above  their  au 
thority  to  decide  in  the  last  resort,  each  of  them 
has  a  right  to  judge  for  itself  in  relation  to  the 
nature,  extent,  and  obligations  of  the  instrument." 

The  practical  comment  of  the  Palmetto  State 
upon  these  doctrines  of  her  Legislature  and  her 
favorite  chief,  was  to  fill  her  towns  with  the  clamor 
of  military  preparation,  and  fling  out  her  seditious 
ensigns.  Blue  cockades  and  palmetto  buttons 
were  displayed.  A  red  flag  was  unfurled,  with  a 
lone  black  star  in  the  centre.  The  Federal  ban 
ner  was  exhibited  with  the  stars  downward.  Med 
als  were  struck,  bearing  the  inscription,  "  JOHN 
C.  CALHOUN,  First  President  of  the  Southern  Con 
federacy  !  " 

To  avert  the  threatened  insurrection,  GENERAL 
JACKSON  strengthened  the  military  posts  in  the 
rebellious  State,  and  stationed  a  naval  force  off 
Charleston.  In  talking  over  the  aspect  of  affairs, 
he  said  to  GENERAL  DALE  :  "  If  this  thing  goes  on, 
our  country  will  be  like  a  bag  of  meal  with  both 
ends  open.  Pick  it  up  in  the  middle  or  endwise, 
and  it  will  run  out.  I  must  tie  the  bag,  and  save 
the  country."  When  questioned,  on  his  death 
bed,  as  to  what  he  would  have  done  with  CALHOUN 
and  the  Nullifiers  in  case  they  had  persisted,  he 
promptly  answered :  "  Hung  them,  sir,  as  high 
as  Haman.  They  should  have  been  a  terror  to 


156      THE  REBELLION  OF  THE  BARONS. 

traitors  to  all  time,  and  posterity  would  have  pro 
nounced  it  the  best  act  of  my  life." 

Posterity  must  indeed  regret,  that,  instead  of 
the  vigorous  measures  which  the  President  seemed 
inclined  to  adopt,  a  spirit  of  timidity  and  compro 
mise  was  exhibited  toward  the  insurgents.  The 
pusillanimous  attitude  of  the  Federal  Government, 
at  that  time  quailing  before  a  rebellious  State,  bore 
appropriate  fruit,  thirty  years  later,  in  the  treason 
able  act  of  Secession,  and  in  the  piratical  seizure 
of  the  property  of  the  nation. 


III. 


PECULIAR    SOCIAL    SYSTEM    OF    THE    SOUTH.  —  THE 
REBELLION  THE  LOGICAL  RESULT. 

THESE  disunion  tendencies  have  been  awakened 
and  stimulated,  as  no  man  can  reasonably  doubt, 
by  that  despotic  principle  which  has  always  been 
supreme  at  the  South,  and  of  which  slavery  is  the 
popular  manifestation.  That  principle  had  already 
become  so  potent,  in  the  days  of  the  Revolution, 
that  South  Carolina  had  been  induced  only  by 
laborious  efforts  to  adopt  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence,  and  had  not  been  restrained,  in  the 
struggle  that  ensued,  from  tendering  her  submis 
sion  to  the  British  crown.*  The  same  principle 
had  been  so  far  dominant  in  the  Southern  mind, 
in  the  days  of  the  Constitutional  Convention,  that 
MR.  RUTLEDGE,  of  South  Carolina,  had  said,  while 
opposing  a  tax  on  the  importation  of  slaves  :  "  The 
true  question  at  present  is,  whether  Southern 
States  shall  or  shall  not  be  parties  to  the  Union." 
And  MR.  PINCKNEY  had  followed  with  the  odious 
sentiment,  that  South  Carolina  would  never  re 
ceive  the  Constitution  if  it  prohibited  the  slave- 
trade,  f 

*  Hon.  Charles  Sumner's  Address  at  Cooper  Institute,  Nov.  27, 1861. 
Compare  Hildreth's  History,  Vol.  III.  p.  280. 
t  Elliott's  Debates,  Vol.  V.  p.  457. 


158  THE  REBELLION   OF   THE   BARONS. 

As  far  back  as  March,  1776,  JOHN  ADAMS  had 
declared,  —  writing  to  GENERAL  GATES,  —  "  All  our 
misfortunes  arise  from  a  single  source,  the  resist 
ance  of  the  Southern  Colonies  to  republican  gov 
ernment"  And  he  adds,  that  "  popular  principles 
and  axioms  are  abhorrent  to  the  inclinations  of 
the  BARONS  OP  THE  SOUTH."  * 

Facts  have  come  to  light  during  only  the  past 
year  which  conclusively  show  that  the  idea  of  dis 
membering  the  Union  had  been  for  a  long  time 
the  settled  purpose  of  the  Southern  leaders,  and 
that,  too,  without  respect  to  the  conduct  of  the 
North,  —  the  alleged  grievances  being  only  pre 
texts  to  cover  this  all-pervading  policy  of  rebellion, 
and  gloss  the  odious  atrocity  of  treason. 

In  a  confidential  letter  written  by  Jackson,  in 
1833,  and  only  recently  made  public,  he  says,  in 
allusion  to  the  Nullification  movement :  "  The 
Tariff  was  only  the  pretext,  and  DISUNION  and  a 
SOUTHERN  CONFEDERACY  the  real  object.  THE  NEXT 

PRETEXT  WILL  BE  THE  NEGRO  OR  SLAVERY  QUES 
TION." 

The  statement  of  JACKSON  is  most  emphatically 
confirmed  by  the  confessions  made  in  the  Rebel 
Convention  of  South  Carolina.  MR.  PACKER  re 
minds  his  fellow-traitors,  that  "  Secession  is  no 
spasmodic  effort  that  has  come  suddenly  upon  us. 
It  has  been  gradually  culminating  for  a  long  series 
of  years."  MR.  INGLIS  said:  "Most  of  us  have 
had  this  subject  under  consideration  for  the  last 

*  John  Adams's  Works,  Vol.  I.  p.  207. 


PECULIAR  SOCIAL  SYSTEM  OF  THE  SOUTH.   159 

twenty  years."  MR.  KEITT  ardently  declared  :  "  I 
have  been  engaged  in  this  movement  ever  since 
I  entered  political  life."  MR.  RHETT  confessed: 
"  It  is  nothing  produced  by  MR.  LINCOLN'S  elec 
tion,  or  the  non-execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law.  It  is  a  matter  which  has  been  gathering 
head  for  thirty  years." 

The  real  ground  of  Southern  discontent,  the 
true  spring  of  the  movement  for  dissolution,  has 
been  candidly  admitted  by  DR.  SMYTHE,  of  Charles- 
tori  :  "  It  is  not  the  election  of  a  Republican  Presi 
dent,  nor  the  non-execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law.  The  real  difficulty  lies  far  back  of  these 
things.  It  consists  in  the  atheistic,  Red  Repub 
lican  doctrine  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  ; 
and  until  this  is  trampled  under  foot,  there  can 
be  no  peace."  *  Here  we  have  the  ultimatum  of 
despotism ;  the  entire  abrogation  of  liberty  as  the 
condition  of  peace  ! 

It  may  be  readily  seen  how  the  growth  of  this 
conspiracy  resulted  inevitably  from  the  social 
system  of  the  South.  As  the  devotion  of  those 
communities  to  slavery  became  confirmed  by  com 
mercial  cupidity  and  the  interests  of  political  am 
bition, —  as  a  degenerate  sentiment  began  to  rally 
in  defence  of  slavery,  as  a  lawful  and  permanent 
institution,  —  as  the  moral  sense  became  coerced 
into  an  acceptance  of  the  system,  and  the  popu 
lar  passions  enlisted  in  its  perpetuity,  —  it  re- 

*  Quoted  from  memory. 


160  THE   REBELLION   OF    THE    BARONS. 

suited  of  necessity  that  the  entire  South  should 
assume  an  attitude  of  vigilance,  of  suspicion,  and 
of  hostility  toward  whatever  influences  appeared 
to  endanger  her  precarious  possessions.  The  in 
compatibility  of  the  slave  system  with  the  most 
obvious  principles  of  a  republican  government 
could  hardly  fail  to  have  been  detected,  at  an 
early  day,  by  the  wakeful  guardians  of  the  slave 
power.  The  very  form,  the  paramount  ideas,  of 
the  Federal  Government,  —  to  say  nothing  of 
the  well-known  opinions  of  most  of  its  framers, 
—  were  seen  to  be  hostile  to  slavery.  It  was 
felt  from  the  first,  that,  under  such  a  govern 
ment,  slavery  could  hope  only  for  a  precarious 
toleration ;  and  that,  if  the  people  were  ever  to 
demand  a  general  enforcement  of  its  principles, 
the  incongruous  system  must  be  swept  from  the 
land.  It  subsisted,  thus  far,  by  the  suiferance 
of  the  nation,  rather  than  by  any  legitimate  au 
thority  that  could  be  justly  claimed  for  its  sup 
port.  All  legitimate  authority  was  against  it, 
because  the  common  law,  the  national  law,  na 
ture,  and  conscience  were  against  it.  It  was  a 
licentious  robber,  bolted  within  one  of  the  apart 
ments  of  the  house,  defying  the  magistrate,  it  is 
true,  but  fearfully  exposed  to  the  slumbering  jus 
tice  which  he  was  authorized  to  execute.  Who 
could  tell  when  that  righteous  Christian  sentiment 
which  abhors  slavery  as  the  foulest  of  wrongs, 
omnipotent  already  in  other  countries,  might  at 
tain  so  great  an  ascendency  in  this,  as  to  demand 


PECULIAR   SOCIAL   SYSTEM   OF   THE   SOUTH.      161 

the  abolition  of  the  gigantic  iniquity  ?  What  per 
manent  safety  could  be  found  for  the  slave  sys 
tem,  except  by  sundering  the  States  that  nourished 
it  from  tho  dangerous  contagion  of  a  free  nation, 
and  casting  off  the  authority  of  the  Constitution, 
whose  avowed  object  it  is  to  establish  justice  and 
secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  ? 

Moreover,  though  the  American  people  had 
hitherto  been  induced  to  favor  slavery,  by  a  series 
of  astonishing  concessions  to  its  illegal  demands, 
the  irrepressible  tendency  of  free  society  had 
brought  the  slave  system  into  condemnation.  De 
fer  to  slavery  as  tamely  as  men  would,  —  apologize, 
intrigue,  and  vote  for  it  as  they  might,  —  they  could 
not  change  those  laws  of  the  Almighty  which 
bring  blessings  upon  free  labor,  and  all  the  glo 
ries  of  civilization  to  free  States,  while  they  in 
fuse  curses  into  the  profits  of  tyranny,  and  sink 
the  empire  that  espouses  it  into  barbarism.  It 
had  become  plain  that  no  craft  could  tamper  with 
the  equity  of  Providence,  however  shamefully  de 
praved  might  become  the  government.  That 
dread  equity  had  drawn  a  black  judicial  line  be 
tween  the  free  and  slave  States,  displaying  on 
one  side  thrift,  refinement,  intelligence,  order, 
and  the  tender  charities  that  spring  from  Chris 
tian  culture,  and  disclosing  on  the  other,  indi 
gence,  brutality,  ignorance,  incipient  anarchy,  and 
heathen  cruelty. 

A  contrast  so  vivid,  in  which  God  had  appar 
ently  impressed  his  approval  of  freedom  and  his 


162  THE  REBELLION   OF   THE  BARONS. 

detestation  of  tyranny,  was  not  to  be  withstood 
without  imminent  peril  of  the  eventful  judgment 
of  man's  awakened  conscience  and  reason.  The 
preservation  of  slavery  required  that  it  should 
be  rescued  from  the  condemnation  of  such  a 
contrast;  shielded  from  the  competition  of  free 
labor;  furnished  with  clear  constitutional  sanc 
tions,  and  invested  with  the  spoils  of  Mexico 
and  Cuba,  with  whatever  additional  lands  might 
be  cloven  out  of  the  Western  Hemisphere  to  feed 
its  rapacious  lust. 

Hence  all  the  fierce  impulses  of  the  Southern 
blood  leaped  in  the  line  of  Disunion.  A  besotted 
devotion  to  the  slave  system,  and  a  fanatical  hatred 
of  the  liberal  principles  embodied  in  the  Republic, 
became  paramount  passions.  Secret  machinations 
to  undermine  the  government,  and  a  growing  jeal 
ousy  and  antipathy  toward  the  free  States,  became 
characteristic  of  the  Southern  politicians  and  peo 
ple.  Adopting  the  fervid  rhetoric  of  one  of  their 
orators,  we  may  say,  that  "  the  lone  star  of  their 
empire  attracted  their  political  needle  to  the  trop 
ics,"  there  to  develop  a  social  system  grounded  on 
the  everlasting  subjugation  of  the  African. 

To  that  infatuated  people  —  lured  by  the  bale 
ful  phantom  their  cruelty  and  pride  have  evoked 
—  it  has  seemed  a  small  thing  to  become  alien 
ated  from  the  principles  and  hopes  of  the  Republic ; 
to  conspire  for  thirty  years  against  the  life  of  the 
nation  that  honored  them  with  its  confidence,  and 
to  maintain  whose  authority  they  had  registered 


PECULIAR  SOCIAL  SYSTEM  OF  THE  SOUTH.   163 

their  oaths  in  heaven  ;  to  stand  before  the  bar  of 
mankind  as  the  architects  of  a  new  nationality, 
based  upon  the  worst  form  of  oppression  the  world 
ever  saw,  and  to  become  transfixed  by  the  judg 
ment  of  posterity  as  the  most  odious  enemies  of 
their  race.  Such  is  the  fearful  madness  with  which 
God  humiliates  the  haughtiness  of  the  wicked, 
while  justice  is  arming  its  ministers  to  cut  them 
off  from  the  land. 


IY. 

THE  RIPENING  -OF  THE  TREASON. 

MEANTIME,  so  long  as  the  Federal  Government 
could  be  kept  subservient  to  the  extension  of 
slavery,  there  was  no  motive  for  revolting  against 
it.  Inasmuch  as  that  government  was  mainly 
supported  by  revenue  drawn  from  the  free  States, 
and  in  consideration  of  its  ductile  fidelity  to  the 
slave  policy,  it  was  for  the  interest  of  the  South 
still  to  acknowledge  its  authority.  So  long  as  the 
Federal  Union  could  be  made  the  instrument  of 
slavery  with  very  little  comparative  expense  to  the 
South,  it  was  almost  as  convenient  as  a  Southern 
Confederacy,  and  infinitely  more  economical. 

So  long  as  the  master  of  the  house  evinced  no 
symptoms  of  "a  change  of  heart "  in  favor  of 
liberty,  there  was  no  other  reason  for  blowing  up 
the  edifice  than  a  vindictive  desire  to  injure  some 
of  the  servants.  Where,  in  all  the  slave-holding 
dominion,  among  all  the  hypothetical  representa 
tives  of  the  despotic  policy,  could  have  been  found 
two  men  more  zealous  for  the  interests  of  slavery 
than  Presidents  PIERCE  and  BUCHANAN?  Surely, 
the  South  might  afford  to  possess  its  soul  in  pa 
tience  ;  surely,  it  could  safely  venture  to  postpone 


THE  RIPENING  OF  THE   TREASON.  165 

the  perilous  experiment  of  rebellion.  It  has  been 
said  by  persons  apparently  familiar  with  the  Plu 
tonian  economy,  that  the  Devil  himself  rests  con 
tent  when  the  ablest  of  his  human  parasites  are 
actively  furthering  his  cause. 

But  the  free  States  were  rousing.  Burning 
words  were  being  spoken,  and  deaf  ears  were 
being  unstopped.  Vital  ideas  were  spreading  from 
heart  to  heart,  and  the  ghastly  sepulchre  of  De 
mocracy  was  giving  up  its  dead.  There  were 
rising  portents  gathering  in  the  Northern  sky,  that 
troubled  the  astrologers  of  the  South.  The  emer 
gency  called  for  extreme  measures.  To  break  the 
Missouri  contract,  and  pour  slavery  into  the  North 
west  ;  to  plant  the  death-bearing  vine  on  the  slopes 
of  the  Pacific  ;  to  nationalize  kidnapping  by  turn 
ing  the  Federal  law  into  a  slave  code ;  and  to 
legalize  the  claim  of  property  in  man,  in  all  the 
States  and  Territories,  became  the  characteristic 
policy  of  the  South.  Failing  in  these  measures, 
the  tocsin  of  rebellion  was  to  sound,  and  the  black 
bird  of  treason  batten  on  the  dismembered  nation. 

In  the  struggle  that  ensued,  the  malignant 
nature  of  slavery  was  appallingly  disclosed  in  its 
final  -efforts  to  maintain  its  ascendency.  On  the 
floor  of  Congress,  in  California,  in  Kansas,  and  in 
the  courts  of  the  slave-hunter,  —  under  the  exas 
perating  conviction  that  the  sceptre  was  departing 
from  its  control,  —  it  perpetrated  atrocities  that 
amazed  mankind.  Nor  were  the  most  illustrious 
of  our  Senators  safe  from  the  bludgeon  discipline 


166      THE  REBELLION  OF  THE  BARONS. 

which  that  despotism  would  fain  have  instituted  in 
the  halls  of  the  Capitol. 

The  election  of  1856,  though  it  resulted  in  a 
new  lease  of  power  to  the  slave  oligarchy,  gave 
sure  indications  that  a  new  dynasty  was  at  hand. 
Such  was  the  temper  of  the  free  States,  and  so 
vigorous  and  resolute  had  the  spirit  of  liberty  be 
come,  that  it  was  morally  certain  a  new  policy 
must  be  initiated  at  no  distant  day.  The  time  had 
come  for  the  South  to  translate  her  treasonable 
theories  into  practical  rebellion.  The  time  had 
come  to  destroy  the  government  which  was  about 
to  be  rescued  from  prostitution.  The  time  had 
come  to  realize  the  long-cherished  dream  of  a 
Southern  Confederacy,  to  be  built  out  of  the 
wreck,  and  enriched  by  the  plunder,  of  the  Fed 
eral  Union. 


y. 


FINAL   ORGANIZATION   OF  THE  PLOT  IN  MR.   BUCHAN 
AN'S   CABINET. 


NEVER  had  a  gigantic  conspiracy  such  liberal 
opportunity.  Never  had  traitors  such  tremendous 
immunities.  The  government  that  was  to  be  dis 
organized,  the  Republic  that  was  to  be  dismem 
bered,  were  wholly  in  the  power  of  the  Southern 
rebels  and  their  Northern  abettors. 

The  Cabinet  of  MR.  BUCHANAN  was  honeycombed 
by  this  perfidious  conspiracy.  The  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  was  a  slave-holder  from  Georgia ; 
the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  was  a  slave-holder 
from  Mississippi ;  and  the  Secretary  of  War  was 
a  slave-holder  from  Virginia  ;  —  these  men  were 
all  indefatigable  in  the  work  of  treason.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  was  a  Northern  man  ;  but 
he  seems  not  to  have  hesitated  on  that  account  to 
lend  his  active  services  to  the  plot.  Among  the 
four  traitor  Secretaries,  MR.  FLOYD,  of  Virginia, 
claims  the  pre-eminence  in  crime,  —  the  revela 
tions  of  his  Department  having  proved  him  an 
adept  in  all  grades  of  villany,  extending  from 
grand  larceny  to  high  treason.  But  what  shall 
be  the  verdict  of  posterity  on  the  conduct  of  the 


168  THE   REBELLION   OF   THE   BARONS. 

venerable  President,  who,  during  those  years  of 
maturing  rebellion,  was  in  the  closest  official  inti 
macy  with  the  conspirators  ?  Was  he  so  far  de 
mented  as  not  to  be  aware  of  the  nature  of  the 
enterprise  that  occupied  the  chief  care  of  his  Cabi 
net  ;  or  was  he  so  irretrievably  committed  to  the 
oligarchy  that  had  elevated  him,  as  to  deliberately 
pledge  his  high  prerogative  to  the  ruin  of  the  na 
tion  he  had  sworn  to  serve  ? 

As  MR.  LINCOLN'S  election  became  more  and 
more  probable,  the  conspiracy  rapidly  matured 
under  the  direction  of  the  recreant  functionaries 
who  were  depraving  the  highest  Federal  powers  to 
its  service.  "  Never  before  in  any  country  was  there 
a  similar  crime  which  embraced  so  many  persons 
in  the  highest  places  of  power,  or  which  took  with 
in  its  grasp  so  large  a  theatre  of  human  action." 

By  a  series  of  secret  measures  concerted  and 
directed  by  the  Cabinet,  almost  every  available 
resource  was  withdrawn  from  the  government,  in 
anticipation  of  its  passing  under  a  new  administra 
tion.  In  the  first  place,  "  the  army  of  the  United 
States  was  so  far  dispersed  and  exiled  that  the 
commander-in-chief  found  it  difficult,  during  the 
recent  anxious  winter,  to  bring  together  a  thou 
sand  troops  for  the  defence  of  the  national  capital, 
menaced  by  the  conspirators."  A  similar  dispo 
sition  was  made  of  the  navy,  so  "  that  on  the  4th 
of  March,  when  the  new  Administration  came  into 
power,  there  were  no  ships  to  enforce  the  laws, 
collect  the  revenues,  or  protect  the  national  prop- 


THE  PLOT  IN  MR.   BUCHANAN'S   CABINET.        169 

erty  in  the  rebel  ports."  Out  of  seventy-two  war- 
vessels  that  comprised  the  American  navy,  the 
judicious  Secretary  of  that  Department  had  left 
at  home,  for  the  emergency  of  the  rebellion,  the 
steamer  Brooklyn,  with  twenty-five  guns,  and  the 
store-ship  Relief,  armed  with  two  guns.  In  the 
next  place,  "  the  forts  on  the  extensive  Southern 
coast  were  so  far  abandoned  by  the  public  force 
that  the  larger  part  —  counting  upwards  of  twelve 
hundred  cannons,  and  built  at  a  cost  of  upwards 
of  six  millions  of  dollars  —  became  at  once  an  easy 
prey  to  the  rebels." 

In  the  progress  of  these  astounding  proceedings, 
"  national  arms  were  transferred  from  Northern  to 
Southern  arsenals,  so  as  to  disarm  the  free  States, 
and  equip  the  slave  States.  This  was  done  on  a 
large  scale.  Upwards  of  one  hundred  and  fifteen 
thousand  arms  of  the  latest  and  most  improved 
pattern  were  transferred  from  the  Springfield  and 
Watervliet  arsenals  to  different  arsenals  in  the 
slave  States,  where  they  have  been  seized  by  the 
rebels.  And  a  quarter  of  a  million  percussion 
muskets  were  sold  to  various  slave  States,  at  two 
dollars  and  a  half  a  musket,  when  they  were  worth, 
it  is  said,  on  an  average,  twelve  dollars.  Large 
quantities  of  cannon,  mortars,  powder,  ball,  and 
shell  received  the  same  direction."  Finally,  "  the 
national  Treasury,  which  so  recently  had  been 
prosperous  beyond  example,  was  disorganized  and 
plundered  to  the  verge  of  bankruptcy.  Upwards 
of  six  millions  are  supposed  to  have  been  stolen, 

8 


170  THE   REBELLION   OF   THE   BARONS. 

and  much  of  this  treasure  doubtless  went  to  help 
the  work  of  rebellion." 

Meantime,  in  the  election  of  1860,  two  millions 
of  American  freemen  recorded  their  verdict  against 
any  further  toleration  of  the  slave  despotism.  The 
better  part  of  the  nation  rejoiced  in  the  prospect 
of  a  new  political  dispensation.  Little  did  they 
suspect  that  their  government  was  already  be 
trayed  to  that  despotism  from  whose  craft  they 
fondly  trusted  they  had  rescued  it!  Little  were 
they  aware  that  Cabinet  Ministers  and  Senators  — 
in  contempt  of  their  solemn  oaths  and  of  every 
dictate  of  honor  —  had  already  laid  the  mine  of 
treason  under  a  dozen  States,  and  were  chuckling 
over  the  prospect  of  seeing  the  Union  blown  into 
fragments,  as  the  original  seceders  in  Pandemo 
nium  hailed  with  sardonic  rapture  the  curse  that 
was  to  fall  upon  Eden.  By  no  means  could  our 
people  conceive  what  horrible  paradoxes  were  be 
ing  exemplified  in  those  last  days  of  the  pro- 
slavery  dynasty,  when  the  very  highest  organs  of 
the  Republic  were  ministering  death  to  liberty ; 
when  the  vaunting  representatives  of  chivalry  glo 
ried  in  betraying  their  most  sacred  trusts ;  when 
the  men  who  sat  at  the  council  board  of  the  Chief 
Magistrate  —  esteeming  loyalty  a  farce,  and  abas 
ing  truth  before  craft  —  were  intriguing  to  super 
sede  his  legally-chosen  successor,  and  to  enthrone 
a  military  despotism  in  the  Capitol. 

*  Address  of  Hon.  Charles  Sumner  at  Cooper  Institute. 


VI. 

THE  DRAMA  OF  INSURRECTION. 

THE  drama  of  insurrection  —  appropriately 
opened  by  South  Carolina  —  rapidly  extended  to 
the  other  Gulf  States.  In  all  those  States  where 
slavery  was  omnipotent,  the  rebellion  started  to  its 
feet,  "  like  a  strong  man  armed."  It  mattered  not 
that  those  States  had  been  purchased  by  Federal 
treasure,  defended  by  Federal  armies,  and  fostered 
by  Federal  patronage.  It  mattered  not,  that,  in 
their  weakness,  in  their  poverty  and  semi-barbar 
ism,  the  beneficent  arms  of  the  Republic  had  been 
cast  around  them,  associating  them  in  the  hon 
ors  and  prospects  of  an  illustrious  nationality.  It 
mattered  not  that,  where  a  Texan  refugee,  a  Mis- 
sissippian  repudiator,  or  a  hanger  of  schoolmasters 
from  Arkansas,  would  have  been  held  abroad  no 
better  than  a  freebooter  from  the  Spanish  Main, 
the  indorsement  of  the  great  Republic  and  the 
protection  of  the  American  flag  had  covered  him 
with  the  immunities  of  citizenship,  and  passed  him 
current  round  the  globe.  - 

With  an  impudence  every  way  characteristic  of 
slavery,  they  asserted  the  right  to  abandon,  at 
their  arbitrary  pleasure,  the  Union  to  which  they 


172      THE  REBELLION  OF  THE  BARONS. 

were  so  deeply  indebted,  to  appropriate  its  prop 
erty  to  their  own  uses,  and  to  throw  its  great 
commercial  artery,  the  Mississippi  River,  under  a 
foreign  jurisdiction. 

In  the  startling  developments  of  the  insurrec 
tion,  an  incredible  turpitude  of  duplicity  and 
atrocity  was  unmasked.  The  crimes  that  had  ma 
tured  in  secret  came  to  be  trumpeted  from  the 
house-tops.  Men  whom  the  favor  of  the  Republic 
had  enriched,  found  the  Republic  too  poor  to  com 
mand  their  reverence.  Men  bred  to  the  profession 
of  arms  at  the  nation's  cost,  turned  their  tactics 
against  the  nation's  life.  Men  who  had  fatted  on 
the  patronage  of  the  government  throughout  the 
long,  luxurious  day  of  peace,  no  sooner  saw  the 
government  in  danger,  than  they  handed  back 
their  commissions,  and  stepped  over  to  the  rebel 
camp! 

In  that  most  critical  hour  —  when  treason 
seemed  to  have  undermined  every  department  of 
the  government  —  only  two  eminent  officials  re 
mained  faithful  to  the  imperilled  Republic.  The 
Commander-in-Chief,  GENERAL  SCOTT,  who  exerted 
all  his  energies  to  protect  the  capital ;  and  the 
Secretary  of  State,  GENERAL  CASS,  who  is  said  to 
have  persuaded  the  President  to  maintain  the  Fed 
eral  flag  at  Fort  Sumter,  merit  the  unspeakable 
praise  of  having  saved  the  nation,  under  the  mer 
ciful  providence  of  God,  from  falling  irretrievably 
into  the  hands  of  the  conspirators. 


VII, 

THE  AGONY  OF   COMPROMISE. 

WHILE  the  insurrection  was  making  such  for 
midable  progress  at  the  South,  the  apathy  that 
pervaded  the  North  was  not  less  remarkable. 

During  the  earliest  months  of  the  Rebellion, 
our  people  were  mildly  debating  whether  the  trai 
tors  were  really  in  earnest,  or  whether  they  were 
not  playing  their  favorite  game  of  bluster,  for  the 
purpose  of  extorting  new  concessions ;  whether 
they  would  not  presently  repent  and  return,  like 
the  Prodigal ;  and  whether  it  was  good  policy  to 
coerce  them  into  submission  to  the  laws.  Such 
blindness  to  the  real  issue  that  had  risen  —  such 
insensibility  to  the  actual  danger  that  beset  the 
national  existence  —  was  never  witnessed  before. 

By  the  time  Congress  was  ready  to  assemble, 
the  insurrection  was  under  full  head,  its  defiant 
ground  boldly  taken,  and  its  purposes  audaciously 
declared.  But  even  yet  it  was  to  be  fostered  and 
justified  by  the  depraved  Executive,  and  on  no 
account  resisted  or  exposed.  In  the  Message  of 
the  President,  as  if  to  crown  with  becoming  in 
famy  a  public  career  devoted  to  the  slave  power, 
—  instead  of  recognizing  the  Rebellion  in  its  truly 


174  THE  REBELLION   OF   THE   BARONS. 

atrocious  character,  and  calling  upon  Congress  to 
aid  him  in  subduing  it  as  they  valued  the  nation's 
existence, — he  proceeded  to  express  open  sym 
pathy  with  the  insurgents  ;  to  charge  upon  the 
North  the  responsibility  of  their  acts  ;  and  to 
recommend  on  the  part  of  the  free  States  whole 
sale  concessions  to  that  aggressive  oligarchy  al 
ready  standing  armed  at  the  Capitol  gate  for  the 
murder  of  Liberty. 

The  ensuing  proceedings,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  government,  that  thus  caressed  its  foes  and 
maligned  its  friends,  were  equally  inconsistent 
with  the  crisis,  and  equally  disloyal  to  the  de 
mands  of  the  hour.  For  example,  what  greater 
farce  could  have  been  played,  to  delude  a  nation 
hanging  on  the  brink  of  ruin,  than  the  Peace 
Conference,  as  it  was  impertinently  named,  —  a 
meeting  convened  on  the  motion  of  the  Virginia 
rebels,  with  JOHN  TYLER  in  the  chair,  —  a  meet 
ing  which  the  North  was  so  far  deluded  as  to 
recognize,  and  to  which  she  sent  some  of  her  most 
honored  citizens  ?  "  The  sessions  were  with  closed 
doors,  but  it  is  now  known  that  throughout  the 
proceedings,  lasting  for  weeks,  nothing  was  dis 
cussed  but  slavery.  And  the  propositions  finally 
adopted  by  the  Convention  were  confined  to  slav 
ery.  Forbearing  all  details,  it  will  be  enough  to 
say  that  they  undertook  to  give  to  slavery  positive 
protection  in  the  Constitution,  with  new  sanction 
and  immunity,  making  it  —  notwithstanding  the 
determination  of  our  fathers  —  national  instead  of 


THE  AGONY   OF   COMPROMISE.  175 

sectional ;  and  even  more  than  this,  making  it  one 
of  the  essential  and  permanent  parts  of  our  Re 
publican  system.  .  .  .  ^  .  There  was  another  string 
of  propositions  much  discussed  during  the  last 
winter,  which  bore  the  name  of  the  venerable 
Senator  from  whom  they  came,  MR.  CRITTENDEN, 
of  Kentucky.  These  also  related  to  slavery,  and 
nothing  else.  They  were  more  obnoxious  even 
than  those  emanating  from  the  Peace  Confer 
ence."  The  aim  of  these  propositions  was  "  to 
foist  into  the  Constitution  the  idea  of  property 
in  man  ;  to  protect  slavery  in  all  present  territory 
south  of  thirty-six  degrees  thirty  minutes,  and 
to  carry  it  into  all  territory  hereafter  acquired 
south  of  that  line  ;  to  give  new  constitutional 
securities  to  slavery  in  the  national  capital,  and 
in  other  places  within  the  exclusive  Federal  juris 
diction  "  ;  and  to  insure  the  safe  transit  of  slaves 
through  the  free  States,  thus  contaminating  every 
foot  of  our  soil  with  the  odious  sanctions  of  tyr 
anny.*  Will  the  world  believe  that  we  were  any 
longer  worthy  of  liberty,  when  it  is  known  that 
there  were  men  at  the  North  so  lost  to  national 
dignity  as  to  petition  the  Federal  Congress  to 
make  that  enormous  surrender  to  the  arch  rebel 
and  armed  enemy  of  the  Republic  ! 

There  was  still  another  peace  offering  tendered 
to  the  defiant  rebels ;  for  the  tendency  to  compro 
mise  with  slavery  had  become  chronic  ;  and,  with 
what  EDWARD  EVERETT  happily  terms  "  a  melan- 

*  Hon.  Charles  Suraner. 


176  THE  EEBELLION   OF  THE  BARONS. 

choly  assiduity"  that  craven  Congress  toiled  to 
appease  the  slave-masters.  We  allude  to  MR. 
CORWIN'S  proposal,  which  became  a  legislative  act, 
"  that  the  Constitution  shall  not  be  so  amended  as 
to  give  Congress  the  power  to  abolish  or  interfere 
with  slavery  in  the  States." 

Thus  did  the  Union  humiliate  itself  before  its 
enemies,  after  their  character  and  purposes  had 
become  fully  disclosed !  Thus  did  the  Federal 
Government,  so  long  subservient  to  slavery,  be 
trayed,  threatened,  and  despised,  still  lick  the 
wicked  hand  that  was  clenched  to  annihilate  it ! 

Without  even  affecting  to  hide  the  contempt 
they  felt  for  the  base  overtures  which  had  been 
made,  "  the  Barons  of  the  South  "  assembled  at 
Montgomery,  to  organize  their  new  government. 
Seven  States  were  represented.  The  action  of  the 
Convention  was  rapid  and  decisive.  After  adopt 
ing  the  Federal  Constitution,  with  a  few  character 
istic  modifications,  —  the  rule  being  to  appropriate 
everything  belonging1  to  their  late  government  that 
was  available,  —  it  proceeded  to  organize  "  the 
nucleus  of  an  army  and  navy,"  chose  a  President 
and  Vice-President,  demanded  a  loan  of  fifteen 
million  dollars,  levied  an  export  duty  on  cotton, 
declared  the  Mississippi  free,  proposed  a  new  tariff 
and  navigation  laws,  and  claimed  a  place  in  the 
family  of  nations  as  "  the  Confederate  States  of 
America." 


VIII. 

THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS  INAUGURATED  IN  THE 
DISMEMBERED  REPUBLIC. 

IN  his  inaugural  address,  JEFFERSON  DAVIS  dis 
creetly  avoids  unfolding  the  causes  of  the  Seces 
sion  movement,  but  says,  explicitly,  that  "  the  judg 
ment  and  will  of  the  people  are,  that  connection 
with  the  Northern  States  is  neither  practicable  nor 
desirable";  and  that,  " if  necessary,  we  must  ob 
tain  by  final  arbitrament  of  the  sword  the  position 
we  have  assumed." 

We  are  indebted  to  the  Yice-President,  MR. 
STEPHENS,  for  the  frankest  exposition  of  the  cardi 
nal  principle  of  the  new  Confederacy.  It  is  such 
as  we  were  prepared  to  expect,  from  our  acquaint 
ance  with  the  antecedents  of  the  slave  oligarchy. 
The  principle  is,  that  THE  SUPERIOR  RACE  MUST 
CONTROL  THE  INFERIOR  ;  in  other  words,  that  the 
strong  must  own  the  weak,  and  that  might  makes 
right.  MR.  STEPHENS,  after  stating  the  ideas  of 
the  American  Father^,  as  embodied  in  the  Declara 
tion, —  that  "all  men  are  created  equal,  being 
endowed  by  their  Creator  with  inalienable  rights 
to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness," — 
stigmatizes  them  as  furnishing  "  a  sandy  founda- 

8*  L 


178  THE  REBELLION   OF  THE  BARONS. 

tion "  for  society,  and  declares  that  the  "  new 
government  is  founded  upon  exactly  the  OPPOSITE 
IDEAS.  Its  foundations  are  laid,  its  corner-stone 
rests,  upon  the  great  truth  that  the  negro  is  not 
equal  to  the  white  man  ;  that  slavery  —  subordina 
tion  to  the  superior  race  —  is  his  natural  and 
normal  condition." 

But  it  is  not  the  subordination  of  the  negro 
alone  that  is  contemplated  by  the  rebel  govern 
ment.  We  have  seen  that  HENRY  CLAY  antici 
pated  that  slavery  would  survive  the  negro  race  ; 
and  it  is  clear  that  the  principle  on  which  Southern 
society  is  based,  and  which  is  frankly  avowed  by 
MR.  STEPHENS  as  the  corner-stone  of  the  new  Con 
federacy,  would  promptly  seize  the  weakest  of  the 
white  race,  in  the  absence  of  the  black.  In  DE 
Bow's  Review,  —  which  is  acknowledged  to  be  a 
fair  organ  of  Southern  opinion,  —  a  writer  calls 
for  "  a  government  based  upon  the  principle  of 
military  subordination."  He  counsels  the  rulers 
of  the  South  to  procure  such  a  modification  of  the 
State  constitutions  as  to  "  remove  the  people  fur 
ther  from  power,"  and  establish  "  an  hereditary 
Senate  and  Executive." 

These  views,  so  consonant  with  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  rebel  government,  have  been  acted 
upon  in  all  the  seceded  States,  —  not  only  by  the 
armed  despotism  which  has  impelled  those  States 
on  the  tide  of  treason,  while  expelling  the  loyal 
inhabitants  from  their  borders,  but  in  some  legisla 
tive  enactments  tending  to  a  monopoly  of  social 
privileges  and  rights. 


THE   RIVAL   ADMINISTRATIONS.  179 

In  harmony  with  this  cardinal  law  of  the  slave 
empire  was  the  secret  programme  of  the  ensuing 
tragedy.  The  Capitol  and  the  national  archives 
were  to  be  seized  as  early  as  March  ;  the  Plug- 
Uglies  of  Baltimore  were  to  bring  in  MR.  LIN 
COLN'S  head  upon  a  charger,  while  the  daughter 
of  Discord  danced  before  the  embodiment  of  Des 
potism;  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  the  insurgents 
were  to  hold  high  carnival  in  Independence  Hall ; 
and  the  early  autumn  was  to  behold  them  hanging 
Abolitionists  on  Bunker  Hill, — while  the  Christian 
nations  of  Europe,  converted  by  the  gospel  of  the 
London  Times,  were  to  render  homage  to  King 
Cotton  by  recognizing  the  gigantic  usurpation. 

Fortunately  for  the  country,  there  was  an  in 
visible  agency  —  never  absent  from  human  affairs, 
but  of  which  bad  men  make  no  account  —  that  was 
silently  thwarting  the  atrocious  plot.  JEFFERSON 
DAVIS  and  his  satellites  were  born  too  late  by  five 
hundred  years.  The  providence  of  God,  which 
develops  out  of  successive  cycles  an  ever-aug 
menting  sum  of  good  for  man,  could  not  allow  a 
type  of  government  indigenous  to  the  Middle  Ages 
to  become  interpolated  into  the  nobler  text  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  We  owe  our  rescue  from  the 
greatest  crime  ever  meditated  against  civilization 
to  the  simple  fact  that  the  Divine  order  could  not 
tolerate  so  violent  an  anachronism. 

A  change  in  the  rebel  programme  may  be  traced 
to  "  the  sudden  act  of  MAJOR  ANDERSON  in  re- 


180  THE   REBELLION   OF   THE   BARONS. 

moving  from  Fort  Moultrie  to  Fort  Sumter,  and 
the  sympathetic  response  of  an  aroused  people." 
In  that  apparently  trivial  circumstance,  the  Re 
bellion  received  its  first  check.  Washington  was 
saved.  The  President  elect,  passing  in  disguise 
through  seditious  Baltimore,  eluded  the  assassins, 
and  reached  the  capital  in  safety.  There  the 
veteran  SCOTT,  beset  by  spies  and  traitors,  was 
rallying  the  "  forlorn  hope  "  of  the  nation.  There 
the  retiring  chief  magistrate,  bending  under  the 
contempt  of  his  country,  having  prostituted  every 
official  prerogative  to  further  the  conspiracy,  de 
clared  himself  willing  to  ride  with  the  new  Presi 
dent  to  his  inauguration.  There  were  assembled 
excited  citizens  from  all  the  loyal  States,  to  wit 
ness  the  national  ceremony  which  all  felt  was 
liable  to  end  in  a  tragedy. 

Never  before  had  Washington  presented  so 
mournful  and  impressive  a  scene.  "  Around  that 
tall,  ungainly  figure,  which  stood  upon  the  steps 
of  the  Capitol  above  the  multitude,  more  of  fear, 
anxiety,  and  hope  clustered  than  above  any 
former  President."  He  was  himself  penetrated 
by  the  solemnity  of  the  moment.  He  had  en 
tered  upon  a  course  "  the  issues  of  which  were 
hidden  by  the  darkest  clouds  which  had  ever 
hung  over  his  country.  He  saw  the  Union  dis 
membered,  full  of  dissension  and  full  of  fear,  and 
realized  that  upon  him  more  than  upon  any  other 
man  rested  its  future  destinies.  He  saw  arrayed 


THE   RIVAL   ADMINISTRATIONS.  181 

against  his  rule  a  band  of  rebellious  States ;  he 
saw  that  during  his  administration  the  strength 
of  the  government  would  be  tested,  —  that  Provi 
dence  had  called  him  to  preside  over  the  changes 
of  a  great  historical  epoch,  and  that  the  eyes  of 
the  civilized  world  were  upon  him.  For  the  first 
time  in  American  history,  bayonets  bristled  and 
cannon  frowned  around  the  Federal  Capitol.  Fa 
miliar  faces  were  seen  no  more ;  friends,  whose 
presence  had  lent  lustre  to  many  preceding  in 
augurations,  in  distant  States  were  ranged  in  the 
malignant  attitude  of  foes ;  and  every  ear  was 
strained  to  hear  whether 

'  The  long,  stern  swell 
Which  bids  the  soldier  close  ' 

were  coming  up  on  the  soft  southern  breezes. 
Seven  States  had  seceded,  others  were  hanging 
to  the  Union  by  a  thread ;  —  forts,  arsenals,  mints, 
sub-treasuries  had  been  seized ;  Forts  Sumter  and 
Pickens  were  beleaguered  ;  —  insurgents  were  in 
possession  of  nearly  every  stronghold  on  the  At 
lantic,  from  North  Carolina  to  the  Texan  frontier ; 
and  a  hostile  Congress  and  President,  sitting  at 
Montgomery,  were  providing  the  sinews  of  war, 
and  threatening  an  appeal  to  the  bloody  arbitra 
ment  of  the  sword." 


IX. 

COMPROMISE  ENDS,  AND  THE  NEW  ERA  BEGINS. 

IN  this  unexampled  exigency,  the  Inaugural 
Address  of  the  new  President  was  heard  by  the 
American  people  with  an  interest  unfelt  before. 
With  all  our  partiality  for  the  nation's  choice, 
and  with  an  unshaken  confidence  in  the  integrity 
of  the  man,  we  cannot  admit  that  the  Address 
was  equal  to  the  occasion,  in  any  sense. 

It  failed  to  recognize  the  true  character  of  the 
conspiracy ;  it  undertook  to  argue  down  an  armed 
rebellion,  pervading  nearly  half  the  area  of  the 
country ;  it  asserted  that  the  laws  must  be  exe 
cuted  in  all  the  States,  but  disclaimed  the  inten 
tion  of  resorting  to  arms  unless  the  rebels  first 
drew  the  sword;  and,  worse  than  all,  it  affirmed 
the  obligation  of  the  statute  for  the  rendition  of 
fugitive  slaves  ;  thus  holding  out  another  fruit 
less  concession  to  that  disdainful  oligarchy,  which 
it  was  obvious  nothing  could  reach  but  the  terrors 
of  the  law  they  had  violated  and  contemned. 

It  may  be  urged,  however,  in  justification  of 
the  pacific  tone  of  the  Inaugural  Address,  that  the 
conciliatory  policy  thus  intimated  was  deemed  ne- 


COMPROMISE  ENDS,  AND  THE  NEW  ERA  BEGINS.   183 

cessary  to  retain  the  border  States  from  drifting 
into  the  baleful  current  of  Secession ;  and  that 
the  President  consulted  his  official  dignity  by  for 
bearing  to  menace  the  traitors  so  long  as  the  de 
moralized  government  furnished  him  no  resources 
to  enforce  his  authority.  The  critical  ground  on 
which  MR.  LINCOLN  confessedly  stood,  as  well  as 
the  limitations  of  our  common  nature,  will  doubt 
less  excuse  him  at  the  tribunal  of  history  for 
the  utterance  of  words  so  disproportionate  to  the 
emergency,  and  for  an  apparent  reliance  upon 
bland  admonitions,  which  the  turpitude  of  the 
Rebellion  had  rendered  obviously  impotent. 

The  pacificating  policy  ended  with  the  assault 
upon  Fort  Sumter.  The  civil  war,  which  saga 
cious  men  had  long  foreseen  to  be  inevitable,  was 
formally  initiated  when  the  national  flag  was 
struck  from  that  fortress. 

The  two  antagonistic  systems,  whose  moral  col 
lision  had  formed  the  drama  of  our  politics,  had 
now  closed  in  a  physical  conflict  which  could  re 
sult  only  in  the  annihilation  of  one  of  them. 

The  Barons  of  the  South  had  made  their  delib 
erate  appeal  to  the  sword,  as  the  champions  of  a 
worse  than  feudal  despotism ;  and  time  alone 
could  declare  whether  Liberty  would  find  effectual 
succor  in  the  degenerate  Republic. 


PART    V. 

THE   PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE 


"  For  Civil  War,  that  it  is  an  evil  I  dispute  not.  But  that  it  is  the 
greatest  of  evils,  that  I  stoutly  deny.  It  doth  indeed  appear  to  the 
misjudging  to  be  a  worse  calamity  than  bad  government,  because  its 
miseries  are  collected  within  a  short  space  and  time,  and  may  easily, 

at  one  view,  be  taken  in  and  perceived When  the  devil  of 

Tyranny  hath  gone  into  the  body  politic,  he  departs  not  but  with 
struggles,  and  foaming,  and  great  convulsions.  Shall  he,  therefore, 
vex  it  forever,  lest,  in  going  out,  he  for  a  moment  tear  and  rend  it?  " 
—  MILTON. 

"  It  is  impossible  for  a  nation,  even  while  struggling  for  itself,  not  to 
acquire  something  for  all  mankind."  —  MOTLEY. 

"  Horrid,  atrocious,  and  impious  Slavery  covered  with  her  sable 
mantle  the  land  of  Venezuela,  and  our  atmosphere  lowered  with  the 
dark,  gloomy  clouds  of  the  tempest,  threatening  a  fiery  deluge.  I 
implored  the  protection  of  the  God  of  nature,  and  at  His  almighty 
word  the  storm  was  dispelled.  The  day-star  of  Liberty  arose.  Slav 
ery  broke  her  chains,  and  Venezuela  was  surrounded  with  new  and 
grateful  sons,  who  turned  the  instruments  of  her  thrall  and  bondage 
into  the  arms  of  Freedom.  Yes,  those  who  were  formerly  slaves  are 
now  free;  those  who  were  formerly  enemies  of  our  country  are  now 
its  defenders.  I  leave  to  your  sovereign  authority  the  reform  or  re 
peal  of  all  my  ordinances,  statutes,  and  decrees.  But  I  implore  you 
to  confirm  the  complete  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  as  I  would  beg 
my  life  or  the  salvation  of  the  Republic."  —  GENERAL  BOLIVAR  to 
the  Congress  of  Venezuela. 

"AS  GOD  LIVES  AND  REIGNS,  EITHER  THIS  NATION  WILL  ABOL 
ISH  SLAVERY,  OR  SLAVERY  WILL  ABOLISH  IT  !  "  —  HON.  GERRIT 
SMITH. 


"  Then  Freedom  sternly  said:  '  I  shun 

No  strife  nor  pang  beneath  the  sun, 

When  human  rights  are  staked  and  won. 
"  '  I  knelt  with  Ziska's  hunted  flock, 

I  watched  in  Toussaint's  cell  of  rock, 

I  walked  with  Sidney  to  the  block. 
"  '  The  moor  of  Marston  felt  my  tread, 

Through  Jersey  snows  the  march  I  led, 

My  voice  Magenta's  charges  sped. 
"  '  But  now,  through  weary  day  and  night, 

I  watch  a  vague  and  aimless  fight 

For  leave  to  strike  one  blow  aright. 
"  '  On  either  side  my  foe  they  won : 

One  guards  through  love  his  ghastly  throne, 

And  one  through  fear  to  reverence  grown. 
"  '  Why  wait  we  longer,  mocked,  betrayed 

By  open  foes  or  those  afraid 

To  speed  thy  coming  through  my  aid  ? 
"  '  Why  watch  to  see  who  win  or  fall  ?  — 

I  shake  the  dust  against  them  all, 

I  leave  them  to  their  senseless  brawl.' 
" ( Nay,'  Peace  implored :  '  yet  longer  wait ; 

The  doom  is  near,  the  stake  is  great; 

God  knoweth  if  it  be  too  late. 
"  '  Still  wait  and  watch ;  the  way  prepare 

Where  I  with  folded  wings  of  prayer 

May  follow,  weaponless  and  bare.' 
" '  Too  late ! '  the  stern,  sad  voice  replied, 

'  Too  late ! '  its  mournful  echo  sighed, 

In  low  lament  the  answer  died. 
"  A  rustling  as  of  wings  in  flight, 

An  upward  gleam  of  lessening  white, 

So  passed  the  vision,  sound  and  sight. 
"  But  round  me,- like  a  silver  bell 

Rung  down  the  listening  sky  to  tell 

Of  holy  help,  a  sweet  voice  fell. 
"  '  Still  hope  and  trust,'  it  sang;  'the  rod 

Must  fall,  the  wine-press  must  be  trod, 

But  all  is  possible  with  God ! '  " 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 


I. 


GLOOMY  ASPECT   OF  THE  STRUGGLE. 

THE  Rebellion  that  put  off  its  disguise  and  as 
sumed  the  defiant  panoply  of  war  in  April  last, 
extended  over  an  area  of  733,144  square  miles. 
It  possessed  a  coast  line  of  3,523  miles,  and  a 
shore  line  of  25,414  miles,  with  an  interior  boun 
dary  line  of  7,031  miles  in  length.*  From  the  im 
mense  region  here  indicated,  it  boasted  that  it 
could  enlist  and  place  in  the  field  600,000  men. 

To  oppose  an  insurrection  covering  such  space 
of  territory,  and  embracing  an  armed  force  among 
the  largest  ever  marshalled  in  war,  what  resources 
did  the  nation  possess  ?  The  Rebellion  had,  under 
the  toleration  and  by  the  connivance  of  the  late 
Administration,  scattered  the  navy  of  the  United 
States  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  globe ;  demor 
alized  and  betrayed  the  army ;  stripped  the  loyal 
States  of  arms  to  equip  those  embarked  in  the  in 
surrection  ;  obtained  possession  of  about  every 
fortress,  arsenal,  sub-treasury,  mint,  within  the 
lines  of  the  conspiracy ;  completely  plundered 
the  United  States  Treasury,  and  sapped  with  trea- 

*  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  December,  1861. 


188  THE   PROVIDENTIAL  ALTERNATIVE. 

son  all  the  pillars  of  the  Republic.  In  short,  while 
the  Rebellion  was  affluent  in  every  material  re 
source,  —  resolute,  sanguine,  rapacious,  vigilant, 
indefatigable,  —  the  Union  was  literally  despoiled, 
the  new  government  defenceless,  apparently  vacil 
lating,  temporizing  with  its  unmeasured  fate,  em 
barrassed  in  every  function,  and  so  completely 
girded  by  sedition  and  anarchy,  that  some  of  the 
earliest  troops  —  hastening  from  a  free  State  to  its 
rescue  —  fell  victims  to  rebel  treachery  in  the 
streets  of  Baltimore. 

Under  these  gloomy  auspices,  the  great  struggle 
commenced.  On  one  side,  the  oligarchy  of  Slave 
Barons,  armed  and  aggrandized  with  the  stolen 
resources  of  the  nation ;  on  the  other,  the  dis 
mantled  Republic,  with  no  reliance  but  a  plun 
dered  government  and  the  patriotic  loyalty  of  the 
legitimate  heirs  of  freedom.  To  the  outward  view, 
never  was  a  great  conflict  begun  under  so  great  a 
disparity  of  resources. 


II. 


THE  REBELLION  VULNERABLE  THROUGH  SLAVERY. 

AND  yet  it  was  evident  from  the  first,  to  all  who 
apprehended  the  real  animus  of  the  contest,  that 
the  Rebellion  presented  one  vulnerable  point,  where 
it  was  easy  to  strike  it  a  mortal  blow.  Slavery  was 
the  notorious  spring  of  the  Rebellion.  The  motive 
power  of  the  Rebellion  was  the  heart-beat  of  slav 
ery,  aspiring  to  crush  the  continent  in  its  snaky 
embrace.  Let  the  Federal  power,  in  the  exercise 
of  either  its  civil  or  military  prerogative,  launch 
one  resolute,  mortal  shaft  into  the  heart  of  slavery, 
and  the  Rebellion  would  sink  lifeless  in  a  day. 

It  was  observed  that  the  degree  to  which  people 
were  enamored  of  slavery  described  the  exact  ex 
tent  of  their  devotion  to  the  Rebellion.  Thus  South 
Carolina  and  Georgia,  Alabama  and  Mississippi, 
Louisiana  and  Texas,  are  the  States  most  ardently 
espoused  to  slavery ;  and  these,  accordingly,  were 
the  chief  seats  of  the  great  conspiracy.  In  the 
States  less  interested  in  slavery  —  North  Carolina, 
Tennessee,  Virginia  —  the  Rebellion  found  less  en 
couragement,  and  prevailed  only  by  a  process  of 
despotic  intimidation  and  mobocratic  violence.  In 


190  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

those  border  States  —  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and 
Missouri  —  where  the  popular  interest  in  slavery  is 
comparatively  lukewarm,  all  efforts  to  achieve  dis 
union  were  defeated,  although  the  slave  element 
in  those  States,  creating  sympathies  and  animosi 
ties  favorable  to  the  Rebellion,  has  faithfully  suc 
cored  and  abetted  the  cause  to  which  it  bears 
affinity. 

It  was  observed,  also,  that  the  cardinal  doctrine 
of  the  Rebellion  —  the  alleged  right  of  a  State  to 
nullify  the  Federal  Constitution  and  sever  its  con 
nection  with  the  Union  —  was  a  logical  outgrowth 
of  that  usurpation  which  slavery  involves.  The 
doctrine  u  belongs  to  that  brood  of  assumptions  and 
perversions  of  which  slavery  is  the  prolific  parent. 
Wherever  slavery  prevails,  this  pretended  right  is 
recognized,  and  generally  with  an  intensity  pro 
portioned  to  the  prevalence  of  slavery,  —  as,  for 
instance,  in  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  more 
intensely  than  in  Tennessee  and  Kentucky.  It 
may  be  considered  a  fixed  part  of  the  slave-hold 
ing  system.  A  pretended  right  to  set  aside  the 
Constitution  to  the  extent  of  breaking  up  the  gov 
ernment,  is  the  natural  companion  to  the  pretended 
right  to  set  aside  human  nature  to  the  extent  of 
making  merchandise  of  men."  The  doctrine  of 
Secession  is  instinct  with  the  lawlessness  of  slavery. 
The  system  that  finds  toleration  in  the  crime  of 
overthrowing  the  very  nature  of  man  could  not  be 
expected  to  hesitate  in  overturning  a  mere  form  of 
government.  The  greater  crime  which  our  nation 


THE  REBELLION  VULNERABLE  THROUGH  SLAVERY.    191 

had  consented  to  ignore  includes  the  less  which 
has  startled  us  from  our  apathy. 

It  was  notorious  that  the  extension  and  protec 
tion  of  slavery  furnished  the  sole  motive  to  the 
Rebellion.  But  for  the  perpetuity  of  slavery,  there 
could  never  have  been  any  incentive  to  secession, 
or  any  conflict  of  interest  in  the  nation.  Only 
let  the  terrors  of  our  violated  federal  law  fall  upon 
slavery,  the  clearly  convicted  criminal,  —  only  let 
it  suffer  the  destruction  which  its  crimes  had  justly 
provoked,  —  and  all  the  hopes  that  inspired  and 
nourished  the  Rebellion  must  likewise  perish. 

The  slave  system  being  annihilated,  the  project 
of  a  Southern  Confederacy  having  slavery  for  its 
corner-stone  would  be  forever  dissipated.  The  one 
only  impediment  to  Union  would  be  removed,  —  the 
stone  of  offence,  the  element  of  discord,  the  arch- 
author  of  sedition,  would  be  swept  from  the  land, 
—  leaving  to  the  Northern  and  Southern  sections 
of  the  Republic  a  common  interest,  a  kindred  am 
bition,  and  a  united  career  of  prosperity  and  glory. 

These  considerations  were  so  obvious  that  they 
flashed  through  the  minds  of  thoughtful  men  at 
the  very  opening  of  the  drama,  and  revealed  to 
them  what  appeared  to  be  the  imperative  policy 
of  the  government.  God  had  put  the  duty  of  our 
rulers  before  the  people  in  so  clear  a  light  that  it 
seemed  no  prejudice  or  casuistry  would  be  able  to 
hide  it.  He  had  so  disposed  events  as  to  make  the 
rescue  of  the  nation  dependent  on  the  destruction 
of  slavery  ;  while  he  had  obviously  connected  the 


192  THE  PROVIDENTIAL  ALTERNATIVE. 

preservation  of  slavery  with  the  annihilation  of  the 
Union.  Surely  now  there  could  be  no  hesitation. 
The  fate  of  the  slave  had  become  identified  with 
the  fate  of  the  Republic.  A  decree  of  national 
justice  had  become  the  indispensable  means  of 
national  redemption.  The  law  of  self-preservation 
had  become  the  law  of  liberty. 


III. 


IMPRACTICABLE  POLICY  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT.  —  PRO 
TECTING  SLAVERY  AT  THE  EXPENSE  OF  THE  UNION. 
—  DESTROYING  THE  NATION  TO  SAVE  ITS  CONSTITU 
TION. 

WILL  a  future  generation  be  able  to  credit  the 
amazing  fact,  that  —  during  the  earlier  months  of 
the  war  —  our  Government  apparently  ignored  all 
these  considerations,  sedulously  affected  to  over 
look  the  criminality  of  slavery  as  the  chief  agency 
and  paramount  interest  of  the  Rebellion,  arid  at 
tempted  a  fallacious  discrimination  between  the 
overt  act  of  treason  and  the  instigating  cause  and 
covert  inspiration  thereof?  Yet  such  was  the 
suicidal  policy  under  which  our  first  battalions, 
obeying  the  summons  of  their  country,  were  led  to 
the  unequal  conflict ! 

It  was  officially  announced,  and  vehemently  af 
firmed,  that  the  sole  object  of  the  war  was  to 
subdue  the  Rebellion  and  maintain  the  Constitu 
tion, —  the  latter  clause  being  popularly  under 
stood  to  include  a  guaranty  of  the  perpetuity  of 
slave-holding  !  The  veteran  retainers  of  the  slave 
Barons,  at  the  North,  were  willing  to  sustain  the 
government,  on  the  implied  condition  that  the 
government  should  still  sustain  slavery ;  but  they 


194  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

stipulated,  tenaciously,  that  the  war  against  the 
rebels  should  not  become  "  an  Abolition  crusade." 
The  loyal  press,  accurately  reflecting  the  policy  of 
the  Administration,  proclaimed  to  the  world  —  as 
often  as  the  world  gave  signs  of  being  incredulous 
—  that  it  was  by  no  means  the  object  of  the  war  to 
abolish  slavery,  but  simply  to  put  down  the  Rebel 
lion  ;  although  it  was  perfectly  obvious,  all  the 
while,  that,  if  the  Rebellion  were  really  subdued, 
the  ulcer  that  emitted  this  virus  of  treason  must 
be  extracted  from  the  body  politic. 

Whenever  a  man  ventured  to  intimate,  here  and 
there,  that  this  pretended  distinction  between  the 
Rebellion  and  slavery  was  purely  factitious,  —  like 
the  attempt  to  discriminate  between  the  hand  that 
strikes  you  and  the  will  that  dictates  the  blow,  — 
he  was  sharply  reminded  that  this  was  exclusively 
a  war  for  the  Union,  and  that  in  maintaining  the 
Union  we  upheld  the  "constitutional  rights"  of 
all  the  citizens,  —  the  term  "  constitutional  rights  " 
being  a  delicate  expression  to  indicate  the  sup 
posed  right  of  slave-holders  to  property  in  ne 
groes  ! 

But  this  illusive  distinction,  so  irrational  in 
theory,  became  absolutely  pernicious  in  practice. 
Our  generals,  while  ostensibly  marching  against 
the  rebels,  still  paid  fealty  to  the  chief  rebel  by 
sending  back  fugitive  slaves.  GENERAL  BUTLER  in 
Maryland,  and  GENERAL  McCLELLAN  in  Virginia, 
took  pains  to  assure  the  country  that  their  espousal 
to  the  Union  did  not  qualify  the  allegiance  they 
owed  to  slavery. 


DESTROYING   THE  NATION.  195 

But  these  gentlemen  were  not  insensible  to  the 
admonition  of  events,  and  soon  ceased  to  degrade 
their  military  functions  to  the  service  of  the  slave 
holders  ;  whereas  GENERAL  KELLEY  in  Western 
Virginia,  and  GENERAL  HALLECK  in  Missouri,  six 
months  after  the  opening  of  the  war,  were  still  so 
far  infatuated  —  if  they  were  not  misrepresented 
by  the  press  —  as  to  permit  the  flag  of  the  Union 
to  shelter  the  kidnapper.  Such  acts  involve  the 
highest  moral  treason  to  the  cause  of  the  Republic  ; 
they  give  virtual  "  aid  and  comfort "  to  the  rebels, 
because  they  indicate  sympathy  for  the  odious  sys 
tem  which  is  the  spring  and  motive  power  of  the 
insurrection.  Wherever  they  have  been  commit 
ted,  the  cause  of  the  Union  has  been  weakened 
and  scandalized  ;  for  if  the  cause  of  the  Union  be 
not  the  cause  of  liberty,  in  opposition  to  that  .chat 
tel  slavery  which  the  Rebellion  aims  to  perpetuate, 
in  the  name  of  God,  why  are  we  resisting  the 
Rebellion  ? 

But  —  the  "  constitutional  rights  "  aforesaid  ? 
If  the  view  of  the  Constitution  which  we  have 
advocated  in  this  essay  be  correct,  that  phrase 
cannot  fairly  be  said  to  cover  any  right  to  prop 
erty  in  men.  But,  admitting  that  it  does,  is  it  not 
enough  to  reply,  that  the  Constitution  contem 
plates  no  such  crisis  as  this  ?  that  it  were  madness 
to  preserve  a  Constitution  at  the  price  of  sacrificing 
the  nation  to  which  it  belongs  ?  and  that  the  dic 
tates  of  self-preservation,  among  sane  people,  take 
precedence  of  technicalities  ?  When  your  life  is 


196  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

beset  by  robbers,  is  that  man  your  friend  who, 
instead  of  springing  to  your  rescue  and  assailing 
the  assassins  with  any  weapon  he  can  lay  his 
hands  upon,  contents  himself  with  getting  up  a 
certificate  of  your  moral  character,  and  proving 
that  you  merit  fair  treatment  ?  No  more  is  that 
government  true  to  its  country's  real  need  when 
the  life  of  the  nation  is  beset,  if  it  limit  its  efforts 
to  the  technicalities  of  a  Constitution,  and,  so  ham 
pered,  fail  to  deal  upon  the  enemy  an  effective 
blow.  Of  what  avail  is  it  to  sedulously  shelter  the 
Constitution,  while  the  nation  expires  ?  Whereas 
if  the  nation  be  rescued,  though  by  a  violation  of 
the  Constitution,  the  emergency  pleads  for  the  tech 
nical  illegality,  and  there  is  ample  opportunity  to 
restore  the  law.  It  is  unlawful  to  inflict  violence 
upon  an  unoffending  man  ;  yet,  in  an  emergency 
which  the  law  does  not  foresee,  you  may  snatch 
him  from  fire  or  water  by  the  hair  of  his  head. 
All  attempts  to  ustify  the  government  in  protect 
ing  slavery,  by  pleading  supposed  constitutional 
sanctions,  amount  to  simple  nonsense.  If  slavery 
had  not  forfeited  whatever  protection  it  was  wont 
to  claim  under  the  Constitution,  then  no  pirate 
ever  forfeited  his  life  to  an  outraged  law. 


IV. 


THE  PROGRAMME  OF  THE  PRESIDENT,  AND  THE  LESSON 
OF  EVENTS. 


THESE  persistent  attempts  to  shelter  slavery, 
while  affecting  to  destroy  the  Rebellion  of  which 
slavery  is  the  soul,  demonstrate  the  loathsome 
subserviency  to  which  the  Republic  had  bent.  It 
is  claimed  that  this  unnatural  policy  of  the  Ad 
ministration  was  the  imperative  requirement  of 
public  opinion  in  this  country,  and  we  do  not  feel 
authorized  to  doubt  it;  for  the  land  had  fallen 
into  a  superstition  kindred  to  the  worst  debase 
ment  of  heathenism  ;  and,  as  the  crocodile  was 
sacred  to  the  Egyptians,  and  the  wolf  to  the  Ro 
mans,  slavery  had  become  sacred  to  this  nation. 
Whatever  might  suffer  besides,  slavery  must  be 
protected.  To  conspire  against  the  Union  was 
wicked ;  to  propose  the  abolition  of  slavery  was 
impious.  On  the  scale  of  criminality,  the  rebels 
were  comparatively  guilty,  the  Abolitionists  super 
latively  so! 

But  events  qualify  all  programmes,  —  especially 
such  as  were  arranged  on  the  basis  of  expedi 
ency.  When  GENERAL  BUTLER,  at  Fortress  Mon 
roe,  found  some  hundreds  of  fugitives  claiming  the 


198  THE   PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

hospitality  of  the  Republic,  the  voice  of  humanity 
and  the  dictates  of  common  sense  —  backed  by  a 
seasonable  admonition  from  Massachusetts  —  re 
quired  a  change  of  policy.  Whether  the  fugitives 
were  men,  and  therefore  entitled  to  the  protection 
of  the  army  ostensibly  enlisted  for  freedom,  was  a 
point  which  the  judicious  General  blandly  waived  ; 
but,  men  or  property,  nobody  could  deny  that 
they  were  "  CONTRABAND,"  —  being  claimed  by 
rebel  masters,  —  capable  of  being  employed  for  the 
government  or  against  it,  and  in  that  character 
might  be  safely  sheltered  by  the  American  flag. 
The  sympathetic  response  to  this  shrewd  decision 
which  came  back  to  him  from  all  the  free  States 
assured  GENERAL  BUTLER  that  the  heart  of  the  na 
tion  was  ready  to  sanction  whatever  blows  might 
be  inflicted  upon  slavery,  with  due  regard  to  the 
"  constitutional  rights  "  of  the  slave-masters. 

Meantime,  the  army  of  the  Potomac  adhered 
to  the  original  policy;  and  Congress,  sitting  in 
special  session,  seemed  reluctant  to  implicate  the 
Republic  in  any  act  of  hostility  to  slavery. 

On  the  eve  of  the  ill-fated  march  upon  Manas- 
sas,  the  following  general  order  was  issued  from 
the  Department  of  Washington  :  — 

"  HEADQUARTERS,  DEPARTMENT  OF  WASHINGTON, 
Washington,  D.  C.,  July  17,  1861. 

"General  Orders,  No.  33.] 

"  Fugitive  slaves  will  under  no  pretext  what 
ever  be  permitted  to  reside,  or  be  in  any  way  har- 


THE  PROGRAMME   OF   THE  PRESIDENT.  199 

bored,  in  the  quarters  and  camps  of  the  troops 
serving  in  this  Department.  Neither  will  such 
slaves  be  allowed  to  accompany  troops  on  the 
march.  Commanders  of  troops  will  be  held  re 
sponsible  for  a  strict  observance  of  the  order. 
"  By  command  of 

BRIG.-GEN.  MANSFIELD. 
"THEO.  TALBOT,  Assist.  Adj. -General" 

Now,  among  the  fugitives  thus  officially  excluded 
from  the  camp  there  were  doubtless  men  whose 
sagacity,  fidelity,  and  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
country  would  have  been  of  the  highest  service 
to  the  army,  and  who  might,  indeed,  have  averted 
from  us,  by  seasonable  information  and  warning, 
the  havoc  and  shame  of  the  dreadful  defeat  which 
followed.  But  our  natural  allies  were  repelled, 
contrary  to  every  suggestion  of  common  sense, 
and  our  army  led  blindfold,  as  it  were,  into  the 
rebel  trap,  because  the  government  preferred  to 
peril  its  devoted  volunteers  to  inflicting  any  dam 
age  upon  slavery !  Those  who  believe  that  God 
punishes  the  perverseness  of  nations  by  special 
judgments  will  be  confirmed  in  their  conviction 
by  the  example  of  the  great  calamity  which  fell 
upon  the  Republic  so  suddenly  after  its  violation 
of  the  obvious  dictates  of  justice  and  consistency. 

In  the  providence  of  God  the  defeat  at  Manas- 
sas  helped  the  country  to  a  wiser  appreciation  of 
the  strength  of  our  enemy,  and  impressed  upon 
the  government  the  necessity  of  striking  one  blow 


200  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

at  least  where  he  is  most  vulnerable.  "  The  prop 
osition  of  emancipation  which  shook  ancient  Ath 
ens,  followed  close  upon  the  disaster  at  Cheronaea ; 
and  the  statesman  who  moved  it  afterwards  vindi 
cated  himself  by  saying  that  it  proceeded  not  from 
him,  but  from  Cheronaea.  The  act  of  Congress 
punishing  the  rebels  by  giving  freedom  to  their 
slaves  employed  against  us  —  familiarly  known  as 
the  Confiscation  Act  —  passed  the  Senate  on  the 
morning  after  the  disaster  at  Manassas."* 

Who  can  doubt  that  a  more  tractable  spirit  —  a 
wiser  readiness  to  acknowledge  the  indications  of 
the  Divine  will  —  might  have  averted  from  the 
country  that  calamitous  chastisement  ?  And  if  we 
owe  the  Confiscation  Act  to  the  salutary  reverse  at 
Manassas,  we  have  to  lament  that  the  admonition 
administered  by  that  defeat  was  soon  forgotten. 
Only  two  days  after  the  rout  of  our  army,  while 
Washington  lay  exposed  to  capture,  and  while  vol 
unteers  were  pouring  from  the  free  States  to  its 
defence,  the  Attorney-General  wrote  to  the  United 
States  Marshal  in  Kansas,  requiring  him  (much 
against  his  will)  to  return  fugitive  slaves  to  Mis 
souri  ;  and  informing  him  that  a  neglect  to  exe 
cute  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  would  be  regarded  by 
the  President  as  an  "  official  misdemeanor."  This 
characteristic  act  was  followed  up  by  the  letter  of 
the  President,  —  dictated  probably  by  the  remon 
strance  of  Mr.  HOLT  and  others  of  the  border 
States,  —  qualifying  the  proclamation  of  GENERAL 

*  Hon.  Charles  Sumuer. 


THE   PKOGRAMME   OF   THE   PRESIDENT.  201 

FREMONT,  and  thereby  quenching  the  most  genuine 
enthusiasm  for  the  cause  of  the  Union  that  had 
been  inspired  since  the  commencement  of  the  war. 
The  veil  is  yet  to  be  removed  from  the  counsels 
that  procured  the  removal  of  the  gallant  Califor- 
nian  ;  but  whenever  the  facts  shall  be  made  known, 
if  they  do  not  show  that  hostility  to  slavery  cost 
him  the  favor  of  his  government,  and  his  com 
mand  of  the  Western  Department,  the  country  will 
experience  an  agreeable  surprise. 


V. 


MUST  THE  NATION  DIE,  THAT  THE  BARONS  MAY  WIELD 
THE   WHIP? 


THE  course  of  the  government  appears  yet  more 
astonishing,  when  we  consider  how  small  a  propor 
tion  of  the  American  people  have  any  pecuniary 
interest  in  the  system  for  which  these  extraordi 
nary  sacrifices  were  made.  The  whole  number  of 
slave-holders,  according  to  the  last  census,  did  not 
exceed  four  hundred  thousand,  out  of  whom  it  is 
estimated  that  not  above  one  hundred  thousand 
are  largely  interested  in  slave  property. 

And  yet  for  the  sake  of  this  petty  oligarchy  the 
immediate  welfare  of  thirty  millions  of  people  is 
put  in  jeopardy,  besides  the  prospective  welfare  of 
all  their  posterity  !  The  free  States  have  sent  into 
the  camp,  for  the  defence  of  the  Republic,  a  host 
of  volunteers  outnumbering  all  the  slave-masters, 
whether  treasonable  or  loyal ;  and  should  not  the 
life  of  every  soldier  who  rallied  to  the  Federal 
standard  have  been  as  dear  to  the  government  as 
the  interest  of  a  slave-holder?  —  even  a  slave 
holder  of  a  border  State,  characterized  by  the 
dubious  loyalty  that  inclined  him  to  serve  the 
Union  so  long  as  the  Union  should  serve  slavery ! 


MUST   THE  NATION  DIE  ?  203 

Where  was  the  equity  of  requiring  the  twenty  mil 
lions  of  people  found  in  the  loyal  States  to  contrib 
ute  their  blood  and  their  treasure  to  the  support 
of  a  government,  that  perversely  exposed  itself  to 
destruction,  out  of  regard  to  the  interest  of  a  petty 
squad  of  slave-masters,  most  of  whom  were  in 
arms  for  its  overthrow? 

We  venture  to  affirm  that  so  irritating  an  in 
stance  of  perversity  and  infatuation,  involving  the 
peril  of  such  incalculable  interests,  and  so  violent 
a  series  of  paradoxes,  is  not  to  be  found  on  the 
pages  of  history. 


VI. 

THE  WAR   DEGRADED   IN  THE   INTEREST   OF  SLAVERY. 

WE  have  been  often  admonished,  during  the 
present  eventful  year,  that  the  practical  states 
man  cannot  conform  himself  to  the  theory  of 
the  philosopher,  or  to  the  requirements  of  ab 
stract  justice.  We  promptly  deny  the  propo 
sition.  At  least,  we  insist  that,  so  far  as  the 
theory  of  the  philosopher  is  based  upon  the  moral 
law,  and  elaborated  in  consonance  with  common 
sense,  it  dictates  a  course  which  the  statesman 
will  always  find  practicable  and  eminently  safe. 

There  is  no  error  of  statesmen  more  common, 
or  less  excusable,  than  that  of  consciously  vio 
lating  the  law  of  right,  under  the  temptation  of 
expediency.  All  our  calamities  as  a  nation  have 
sprung  from  this  propensity ;  here  is  the  spring 
of  all  our  political  depravity ;  here  sin  entered, 
and  death  by  sin ;  and  it  by  no  means  confirms 
our  trust  in  the  wisdom  of  our  present  rulers, 
to  hear  them  use  the  old  plea  of  expediency  as 
an  excuse  for  neglecting  justice.  Can  they  natter 
themselves  that  the  Almighty,  whose  dark  judg 
ment  eclipses  the  land,  is  to  be  any  longer  mocked 
by  so  lame  a  pretext  for  practical  infidelity  ?  If 


THE   WAR  DEGRADED.  205 

it  be  God  who  reigns,  and  not  Satan,  then  a 
nation  must  expect  deliverance  in  the  path  of 
justice  and  honesty,  not  in  that  of  expediency 
and  craft. 

In  the  beginning,  every  intelligent  and  con 
scientious  person  in  the  North  hailed  the  war  as 
a  great  conflict  of  ideas,  which  was  to  mark  an 
epoch  in  human  affairs,  and  with  which  enlight 
ened  and  humane  men  might  sympathize  the 
world  over.  "  March  at  the  head  of  the  ideas 
of  your  age,"  said  Louis  NAPOLEON,  "  and  then 
these  ideas  will  follow  and  support  you.  If  you 
march  behind  them,  they  will  drag  you  on.  And 
if  you  march  against  them,  they  will  certainly 
prove  your  downfall."  No  man  can  question  that 
a  war  of  emancipation  would  marshal  under  the 
banner  of  the  Union  the  most  potent  ideas  that 
fire  the  present  age,  and  a  spirit  that  animates 
both  the  better  part  of  the  American  people  and 
all  other  civilized  nations,  —  a  moral  energy,  in 
fact,  which  the  process  of  time  and  the  culture 
of  society  must  intensify  and  augment.  "  March 
at  the  head  of  the  ideas  of  your  age,"  had  been 
the  constant  cry  of  wisdom  to  our  rulers  since 
the  opening  of  this  terrible  controversy.  But  the 
government  had  degraded  the  war  into  a  mere 
scramble  of  political  rivalry,  the  sacrifices  and 
miseries  of  which  threatened  to  be  indefinitely 
prolonged,  besides  being  fruitless.  The  govern 
ment  had  proclaimed  decisively,  by  its  unnatural 
policy  hitherto,  that  there  was  no  great  PRINCIPLE 


206  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

at  issue  between  the  contending  parties,  —  that, 
while  the  rebels  were  fighting  for  a  Southern 
Confederacy  and  SLAVERY,  the  government  was 
contending  for  the  Union  and  SLAVERY.  What 
could  it  matter  to  mankind  whether  the  Con 
federacy  or  the  Union  prevailed,  if  slavery  was 
to  be  cherished  by  both  ?  Why  should  the  coun 
try  peril  its  bravest  sons  on  the  battle-field,  and 
lavish  hundreds  of  millions  of  treasure  to  sus 
tain  MR.  LINCOLN  against  JEFFERSON  DAVIS,  if  both 
were  so  ardently  espoused  to  slavery  as  to  make 
its  intere'st  paramount? 


VII. 

GOD'S  ULTIMATUM. 

THE  war  had  been  waged  during  more  than 
six  months,  before  a  change  of  policy  began  to 
be  indicated  at  Washington.  The  loyal  States 
had  sent  to  the  aid  of  the  government  an  aggre 
gate  of  seven  hundred  thousand  men,*  —  one  of 
the  largest  military  forces  that  was  ever  enrolled. 
The  immense  army,  reviving  the  image  of  an 
Asiatic  host  in  the  plenitude  of  Oriental  em 
pire,  had  been  equipped,  drilled,  and  sustained 
at  an  expense  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  money 
per  day.  Many  of  the  noblest  of  our  young 
men,  in  the  generous  effusion  of  patriotic  enthu 
siasm,  had  laid  down  their  lives  to  vindicate  the 
Republic.  The  loyal  millions  in  the  free  States 
had  cheerfully  submitted  to  taxation,  to  derange 
ments  of  business,  to  social  deprivations  and  do 
mestic  anxiety ;  and  many  of  them  had  resigned 
with  dignity  their  dearest  hopes  for  the  sake  of 
restoring  the  integrity  of  the  Union.  Was  not 
the  government  obligated  to  do  everything  in  its 
power,  to  use  every  instrumentality  sanctioned  by 
the  usages  of  war,  to  attack  its  haughty  enemy 

*  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  December,  1861. 


208  THE  PROVIDENTIAL  ALTERNATIVE. 

at  every  vulnerable  point,  with  a  view  to  bringing 
the  war  to  a  speedy  and  auspicious  termination  ? 
Yet,  up  to  that  time,  it  had,  with  a  prodigal 
waste  of  opportunity,  not  only  refused  to  employ 
free  colored  men  and  Indians  in  its  service, — 
although  the  rebels  had  turned  upon  our  West 
ern  border  both  Indians  and  convicts,  while  they 
had  regiments  of  negroes  under  martial  drill, — 
but  it  had  obstinately  repelled  four  millions  of 
allies,  because  they  could  not  be  welcomed  with 
out  overthrowing  slavery! 

Hence,  with  all  the  resources  at  command  of  the 
government,  with  all  the  loyalty  and  generosity  of 
the  nation,  the  cause  of  the  Union  still  stood  on 
the  defensive,  and  the  great  struggle  seemed  to 
stretch  into  the  future,  an  interminable  prospect 
of  carnage  and  disaster.  The  Rebellion  stood  un 
harmed,  its  vaunting  spirit  unrebuked,  its  diabolic 
propensities  unchecked ;  because  slavery  was  the 
substance  of  it,  and  the  government  had  not  felt 
authorized  to  harm  slavery ! 

Secure  in  the  trust  that  the  power  of  the  Union 
would  not  be  turned  against  slavery,  the  South 
boasted  that  the  piratical  system  was  "  a  tower  of 
strength "  to  the  rebel  cause.  It  was  estimated 
that  the  secure  possession  of  the  slave  population 
would  enable  the  rebels  to  place  six  hundred  thou 
sand  men  in  the  field  ;  and  that,  in  spite  of  the 
numerical  superiority  of  the  North,  the  South 
would  sustain  the  practical  supremacy,  since  it 
was  capable  of  sending  to  the  camp  all  its  able- 


GOD'S  ULTIMATUM.  209 

bodied  freemen,  without  weakening  the  industrial 
force  that  must  provide  the  means  of  subsistence. 
The  following  testimony  from  a  Southern  journal 
shows  how  this  advantage  was  appreciated  :  — 

"  THE  SLAVES  AS  A  MILITARY  ELEMENT  IN  THE 
SOUTH.  —  The  total  white  population  of  the  eleven 
States  now  comprising  the  Confederacy  is  6,000,000, 
and  therefore,  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  the  proposed 
army  (600,000),  about  ten  per  cent  of  the  entire 
white  population  will  be  required.  In  any  other 
country  than  our  own  such  a  draft  could  not  be 
met  ;  but  the  Southern  States  can  furnish  that 
number  of  men,  and  still  not  leave  the  material 
interests  of  the  country  in  a  suffering  condition. 
Those  who  are  incapacitated  for  bearing  arms  can 
oversee  the  plantations,  and  the  negroes  can  go  on 
undisturbed  in  their  usual  labors.  In  the  North 
the  case  is  different ;  the  men  who  join  the  army 
of  subjugation  are  the  laborers,  the  producers,  and 
the  factory  operatives.  Nearly  every  man  from 
that  section,  especially  those  from  the  rural  dis 
tricts,  leaves  some  branch  of  industry  to  suffer 
during  his  absence.  The  institution  of  slavery  in 
the  South  alone  enables  her  to  place  in  the  field  a 
force  much  larger  in  proportion  to  her  white  popu 
lation  than  the  North,  or  indeed  any  country  which 
is  dependent  entirely  on  free  labor.  The  institu 
tion  is  a  tower  of  strength  to  the  South,  particu 
larly  at  the  present  crisis,  and  our  enemies  will  be 
likely  to  find  that  the  '  moral  cancer,'  about  which 
their  orators  are  so  fond  of  prating,  is  really  one 

N 


210  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

of  the  most  effective  weapons  employed  against  the 
Union  by  the  South.  Whatever  number  of  men 
may  be  needed  for  this  war,  we  are  confident  our 
people  stand  ready  to  furnish.  We  are  all  enlisted 
for  the  war,  and  there  must  be  no  holding  back 
until  the  independence  of  the  South  is  fully  ac 
knowledged."  * 

Thus  Providence  still  adhered  to  the  terms  in 
which  the  case  had  been  stated  at  the  opening  of 
the  war :  You  shall  not  overcome  the  Rebellion 
except  you  abolish  slavery.  You  shall  choose  be 
tween  liberty  and  the  Union,  on  one  hand,  and 
slavery  and  anarchy,  on  the  other.  If  you  persist 
in  maintaining  slavery,  then  no  more  Union ;  for 

JUDGMENT  WILL  I  LAY  TO  THE  LINE,  AND  RIGHTEOUS 
NESS  TO  THE  PLUMMET  ;  AND  YOUR  COVENANT  WITH 
DEATH  SHALL  BE  DISANNULLED,  AND  YOUR  AGREE 
MENT  WITH  HELL  SHALL  NOT  STAND. 

That  this  was  God's  ultimatum,  no  man  who 
recognized  a  Divine  Providence  in  human  affairs 
could  longer  doubt.  Would  the  government  ac 
cept  salvation  on  these  righteous  conditions,  or 
would  it  persist  in  following  the  illusive  dictates 
of  expediency,  and  so  founder  in  the  storm  ? 

*  Mobile  (Ala.)  Advertiser. 


VIII. 

A  NEW  POLICY  IMPERATIVE. 

IT  was  consistent  neither  with  the  nature  of 
man  nor  with  the  instincts  implanted  in  the  Repub 
lic  permanently  to  endure  so  irrational  a  policy. 
The  moral  sense  of  the  best  men  and  the  reason 
of  the  most  thoughtful  were  alike  shocked  by  the 
odiously  false  position  which  the  loyal  part  of  the 
nation  was  thus  made  to  occupy. 

The  convictions  of  the  better  part  of  our  people 
began  to  find  expression,  just  previous  to  the 
meeting  of  the  present  Congress,  in  the  eloquent 
remonstrances  of  men  like  the  HON.  GERRIT  SMITH 
and  SENATOR  SUMNER,  and  in  the  changed  tone  of 
members  of  the  Cabinet  and  officers  of  the  army. 
"  Nobody  can  deny,"  said  MR.  SUMNER,  "  that 
slavery  is  the  ruling  idea  of  this  rebellion.  It  is 
slavery  that  marshals  these  hosts,  and  breathes  into 
their  embattled  ranks  its  own  barbarous  fire.  It 
is  slavery  which  stamps  its  character  alike  upon 
officers  and  men.  It  is  slavery  which  inspires  all, 
from  the  general  to  the  trumpeter.  It  is  slavery 
which  speaks  in  the  word  of  command,  and  which 
sounds  in  the  morning  drum-beat.  It  is  slavery 
which  digs  trenches  and  builds  hostile  forts.  It  is 


212      THE  PROVIDENTIAL  ALTERNATIVE. 

slavery  which  pitches  its  white  tents  and  stations 
its  sentries  over  against  the  national  Capitol.  It  is 
slavery  which  sharpens  the  bayonet  and  casts  the 
bullet ;  which  points  the  cannon  and  scatters  the 
shell,  blazing,  bursting  with  death.  Wherever 
this  rebellion  shows  itself,  —  whatever  form  it 
takes,  —  whatever  thing  it  does,  —  whatever  it  med 
itates, —  it  is  moved  by  slavery ;  nay,  it  is  slavery 
itself,  incarnate,  living,  acting,  raging,  robbing, 
murdering,  according  to  the  essential  law  of  its 
being." 

Slavery  may  be  seen  also  "in  what  it  has  in 
flicted  upon  us.  There  is  not  a  community,  —  not 
a  family, —  not  an  individual,  man,  woman,  or 
child,  —  who  does  not  feel  its  heavy,  bloody  hand. 
Why  these  mustering  armies  ?  Why  this  drum 
beat  in  your  peaceful  streets  ?  Why  these  gath 
ering  means  of  war  ?  Why  these  swelling  taxes  ? 
Why  these  unprecedented  loans  ?  Why  this  de 
rangement  of  business  ?  Why  among  us  the  sus 
pension  of  the  habeas  corpus,  and  the  prostration 
of  all  safeguards  of  freedom  ?  Why  this  constant 
solicitude  visible  in  all  your  faces  ?  The  answer  is 
clear.  Slavery  is  the  author,  —  the  agent,  —  the 
cause.  The  anxious  hours  that  you  pass  are 
darkened  by  slavery.  The  habeas  corpus  and  all 
those  safeguards  of  freedom  which  you  adore 
have  been  prostrated  by  slavery.  The  business 
which  you  have  lost  has  been  niched  by  slavery. 
The  millions  of  money  now  amassed  by  patriotic 
offerings  are  all  snatched  by  slavery.  The  taxes 


A  NEW  POLICY  IMPERATIVE.  213 

now  wrung  out  of  your  diminished  means  are  all 

consumed  by  slavery Does  any  community 

mourn  g%allant  men,  who,  going  forth  joyous  and 
proud  beneath  their  country's  flag,  have  been 
brought  home  cold  and  stiff,  with  its  folds  wrapped 
about  them  for  a  shroud  ?  Let  all  who  truly 
mourn  the  dead  be  aroused  against  slavery.  Does 
a  mother  drop  tears  for  a  son,  in  the  flower  of  his 
days  cut  down  upon  the  distant  battle-field,  which 
he  moistens  with  his  youthful,  generous  blood  ? 
Let  her  know  that  slavery  dealt  the  deadly  blow, 
which  took  at  once  his  life  and  her  peace. 

"  You  have  seen  slavery  at  all  times  militant 
whenever  any  proposition  was  brought  forward 
with  regard  to  it,  and  more  than  once  threatening 
a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  You  have  seen  slavery 
for  many  years  the  animating  principle  of  a  con 
spiracy  against  the  Union,  while  it  matured  its 
flagitious  plans  and  obtained  the  mastery  of  Cab 
inet  and  President.  And  when  the  conspiracy  had 
wickedly  ripened,  you  have  seen  that  it  was  only 
by  concessions  to  slavery  that  it  was  encountered, 
as  by  similar  concessions  it  had  from  the  beginning 
been  encouraged.  You  now  see  rebellion  every 
where  throughout  the  slave  States  elevating  its 
bloody  crest  and  threatening  the  existence  of  the 
national  government,  and  all  in  the  name  of 
slavery,  while  it  proposes  to  establish  a  new  gov 
ernment  whose  corner-stone  shall  be  slavery. 
Against  this  rebellion  we  wage  war.  It  is  our 
determination,  as  it  is  our  duty,  to  crush  it ;  and 


214  THE   PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

this  will  be  done.  The  region  now  contested  by 
the  rebels  belongs  to  the  United  States  by  every  tie 
of  government  and  of  right.  Some  of  it  has  been 
bought  by  our  money,  while  all  of  it  —  with  its 
rivers,  harbors,  and  extensive  coast  —  has  become 
essential  to  our  business  in  peace  and  to  our  de 
fence  in  war.  Union  is  a  geographical,  economical, 
commercial,  political,  military,  and,  if  I  may  so 
say,  even  a  fluvial  necessity.  Without  union, 
peace  on  this  continent  is  impossible ;  but  life 
without  peace  is  impossible  also.  Only  by  crush 
ing  this  rebellion  can  union  and  peace  be  restored. 
Let  this  be  seen  in  its  reality,  and  who  can  hesi 
tate  ?  If  this  were  done  instantly,  without  further 
contest,  then,  besides  all  the  countless  advantages 
of  every  kind  obtained  by  such  restoration,  two 
especial  goods  will  be  accomplished,  —  one  politi 
cal,  and  the  other  moral  as  well  as  political.  First, 
the  pretended  right  of  Secession,  with  the  whole 
pestilent  extravagance  of  State  sovereignty,  which 
has  supplied  the  machinery  for  this  rebellion,  and 
afforded  a  delusive  cover  for  treason,  will  be  tram 
pled  out,  never  again  to  disturb  the  majestic  unity 
of  the  Republic.  And,  secondly,  the  unrighteous 
attempt  to  organize  a  new  Confederacy  solely  for 
the  sake  of  slavery,  and  with  slavery  as  its  corner 
stone,  will  be  overthrown.  These  two  pretensions 
—  one  so  shocking  to  our  reason  and  the  other  so 
shocking  to  our  moral  nature  —  will  disappear 
forever.  And  with  their  disappearance  will  com 
mence  a  new  epoch,  the  beginning  of  a  grander 


A  NEW   POLICY  IMPERATIVE.  215 

period.  But  if  by  any  accident  the  rebellion 
should  prevail,  then  just  in  proportion  to  its  tri 
umph,  whether  through  concession  on  our  part  or 
through  successful  force  on  the  other  part,  will 
the  Union  be  impaired  and  peace  be  impossible. 
Therefore,  in  the  name  of  the  Union,  and  for  the 
sake  of  peace,  are  you  summoned  to  the  work. 
But  how  shall  the  rebellion  be  crushed  ?  That  is 
the  question.  Men,  money,  munitions  of  war,  a 
well-supplied  commissariat,  means  of  transporta 
tion,  —  all  these  you  have  in  abundance,  in  some 
particulars  beyond  the  rebels.  You  have,  too,  the 
consciousness  of  a  good  cause,  which  in  itself  is  an 
army.  And  yet  thus  far  —  until  within  a  few 
days  —  the  advantage  has  not  been  on  our  side. 
The  explanation  is  easy.  The  rebels  are  combat 
ing  at  home,  on  their  own  soil,  strengthened  and 
maddened  by  slavery,  which  is  to  them  an  ally  and 
a  fanaticism.  More  thoroughly  aroused  than  our 
selves,  —  more  terribly  in  earnest,  —  with  every 
sinew  strained  to  the  utmost,  —  they  freely  use  all 
the  resources  that  God  and  nature  put  into  their 
hands,  raising  against  us  not  only  the  whole  white 
population,  but  enlisting  the  war-whoop  of  the 
Indians,  —  cruising  upon  the  sea  in  pirate  ships  to 
despoil  our  commerce,  and  at  one  swoop  confis 
cating  our  property  to  the  extent  of  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars,  while  all  this  time  their  four 
millions  of  slaves,  undisturbed  at  home,  are  freely 
contributing  by  their  labor  to  sustain  the  war, 
which  without  them  must  soon  expire. 


216  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

"  It  remains  for  us  to  encounter  the  rebellion 
calmly  and  surely  by  a  force  superior  to  its  own. 
But  to  this  end  something  more  will  be  needed 
than  men  or  money.  Our  battalions  must  be 
reinforced  by  ideas,  and  we  must  strike  directly 
at  the  origin  and  mainspring  of  the  rebellion. 
I  do  not  say  now  in  what  way  or  to  what  extent ; 
but  simply  that  we  must  strike ;  it  may  be  by  the 
system  of  a  Massachusetts  general,  —  BUTLER;  it 
may  be  by  that  of  FREMONT  ;  or  it  may  be  by  the 
grander  system  of  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.  Reason 
and  sentiment  both  concur  in  this  policy,  which 
is  only  according  to  the  most  common  principles 
of  human  conduct.  In  no' way  can  we  do  so  much 
at  so  little  cost.  To  the  enemy  such  a  blow  will 
be  a  terror,  to  good  men  it  will  be  an  encourage 
ment,  and  to  foreign  nations  watching  this  con 
test  it  will  be  an  earnest  of  something  beyond  a 
mere  carnival  of  battle.  There  has  been  the  cry, 
'  On  to  Richmond ! '  and  still  another  worse  cry, 
'  On  to  England  ! '  Better  than  either  is  the  cry, 
4  On  to  Freedom ! '  Let  this  be  heard  in  the  voices 
of  your  soldiers,  —  ay,  let  it  resound  in  the  pur 
poses  of  the  government,  —  and  victory  must  be 

ours.     By  this  sign  conquer That  men 

should  still  hesitate  to  strike  at  slavery,  is  only 
another  illustration  of  human  weakness.  The  Eng 
lish  Republicans,  in  their  bloody  contest  with  the 
crown,  hesitated  for  a  long  time  to  fire  upon  the 
king;  but  under  the  valiant  lead  of  CROMWELL, 
surrounded  by  his  well-trained  Ironsides,  they  ban- 


A  NEW  POLICY  IMPERATIVE.  217 

ished  all  such  scruple,  and  you  know  well  the 
result.  The  king  was  not  shot,  but  his  head  was 
brought  to  the  block. 

"  The  duty  which  I  suggest,  if  not  urgent  now, 
as  a  military  necessity  in  just  self-defence,  will  pre 
sent  itself  constantly,  on  other  grounds,  as  our 
armies  advance  in  the  slave  States  or  land  on  their 
coasts.  If  it  does  not  stare  us  in  the  face  at  this 
moment,  it  is  because  unhappily  we  are  still  every 
where  on  the  defensive.  As  we  begin  to  be  suc 
cessful,  it  must  rise  before  us  for  practical  de 
cision  ;  and  you  cannot  avoid  it.  There  will  be 
slaves  in  your  camps,  or  within  your  extended 
lines,  whose  condition  you  must  determine.  There 
will  be  slaves  also  claimed  by  rebels,  whose  con 
tinued  chattelhood  you  will  scorn  to  recognize. 
The  decision  of  these  two  cases  will  settle  the 
whole  great  question.  Nor  can  the  rebels  com 
plain.  They  challenge  our  armies  to  enter  upon 
their  territory  in  the  free  exercise  of  all  the  powers 
of  war,  —  according  to  which,  as  you  well  know, 
all  private  interests  are  subordinated  to  the  pub 
lic  safety,  which  for  the  time  becomes  the  supreme 
law  above  all  other  laws,  and  above  the  Constitu 
tion  itself.  If  everywhere  under  the  flag  of  the 
Union,  —  in  its  triumphant  march,  —  freedom  is 
substituted  for  slavery,  this  outrageous  rebellion 
will  not  be  the  first  instance  in  history  where  God 
has  turned  the  wickedness  of  man  into  a  blessing ; 
nor  will  the  example  of  Samson  stand  alone  when 
10 


218  THE  PROVIDENTIAL  ALTERNATIVE. 

he  gathered  honey  out  of  the  carcass  of  the  dead 

and  rotten  lion 

"  Thank  God !  our  government  is  strong ;  but 
thus  far  all  signs  denote  that  it  is  not  strong 
enough  to  save  the  Union  and  at  the  same  time 
to  save  slavery.  One  or  the  other  must  suffer, 
and  just  in  proportion  as  you  reach  forth  to  pro 
tect  slavery,  do  you  protect  this  accursed  rebel 
lion  ;  nay,  you  give  to  it  that  aid  and  comfort 
which,  under  our  Constitution,  is  treason  itself. 
Perversely  and  pitifully  do  you  postpone  that  sure 
period  of  reconciliation,  not  only  between  the  two 
sections,  —  not  only  between  the  men  of  the  North 
and  the  men  of  the  South,  —  but,  more  beautiful 
still,  between  the  slave  and  his  master,  without 
which  that  true  tranquillity  which  we  all  seek 
cannot  be  permanently  assured  to  our  country. 
Believe  it ;  only  through  such  reconciliation,  un 
der  the  sanction  of  freedom,  can  you  remove  all 
occasion  of  contention  hereafter ;  only  in  this  way 
can  you  cut  off  the  head  of  this  great  rebellion, 
and  at  the  same  time  extirpate  that  principle  of 
evil,  which,  if  allowed  to  remain,  must  shoot  forth 
in  perpetual  discord,  if  not  in  other  rebellions ; 
only  in  this  way  can  you  command  that  safe  vic 
tory  —  without  which  this  contest  will  be  vain  — 
which  will  have  among  its  conquests  indemnity 
for  the  past  and  security  for  the  future,  —  the 
noblest  indemnity  and  the  strongest  security  ever 
won,  because  founded  in  the  redemption  of  a 
race. 


A  NEW  POLICY  IMPERATIVE.  219 

"There  is  a  classical  story  of  a  mighty  hunter 
whose  life  in  the  Book  of  Fate  had  been  made  to  de 
pend  upon  the  preservation  of  a  brand  which  was 
burning  at  his  birth.  The  brand,  so  full  of  destiny, 
was  snatched  from  the  flames  and  carefully  pre 
served  by  his  prudent  mother.  Meanwhile  the 
hunter  became  powerful  and  invulnerable  to  mor 
tal  weapons.  But  at  length  the  mother,  indignant 
at  his  cruelty  to  her  own  family,  flung  the  brand 
upon  the  flames,  and  the  hunter  died.  The  story 
of  that  hunter,  so  powerful  and  invulnerable  to 
mortal  weapons,  is  now  repeated  in  this  rebellion, 
and  slavery  is  the  fatal  brand.  Let  our  govern 
ment,  which  has  thus  far  preserved  slavery  with 
maternal  care,  simply  fling  it  upon  the  flames 
which  itself  has  madly  aroused,  and  the  rebellion 
will  die  at  once."  * 

*  Sumner's  Address  at  Cooper  Institute,  November  27,  1861. 


IX. 

PROVIDENTIAL  DOOM  OF  THE  BARONS. 

THE  morning  of  Tuesday,  October  29th,  1861, 
dawned  upon  the  most  imposing  spectacle  that 
has  illustrated  the  naval  history  of  this  continent. 
The  great  expedition  —  the  Armada  of  our  annals 
—  lifted  its  anchors  at  Hampton  Roads,  and  sailed 
toward  the  Gulf,  to  meet  its  unknown  destiny. 
For  weeks  its  destination  had  been  the  theme  of 
speculation,  its  success  the  object  of  national  so 
licitude.  From  the  first  the  magnitude  of  the 
enterprise  and  the  mystery  that  clothed  its  vast 
proportions  had  inspired  the  nation  with  the  con 
fident  assurance  that  it  was  to  open  a  new  act  in 
the  tragedy  of  the  Rebellion,  and  give  a  perma 
nent  ascendency  to  the  cause  of  the  Union. 

The  great  expedition  swept  majestically  away 
in  the  splendor  of  that  auspicious  morning,  and 
vanished  down  the  Southern  coast.  The  prayers 
and  hopes  of  a  loyal  people  went  onward  with  the 
fleet  as  it  traversed  those  hostile  waters.  Well 
might  prayers  ascend,  and  well  might  hope  abound 
over  fear  ;  for  when  the  signal  gun  was  fired  that 
morning  from  the  Wabash,  and  the  proud  flag-ship 
moved  out  between  the  capes,  she  bore  the  ark  of 


PROVIDENTIAL  DOOM  OF  THE  BARONS.    221 

a  new  covenant,  the  seal  of  a  new  civil  dispensa 
tion.  For  the  earnest  of  success,  the  pledge  of 
victory,  was  not  alone  in  that  imposing  line  of 
battle-ships,  with  its  mighty  armament  of  stern 
men,  and  its  frowning  batteries  gorged  with  can 
non,  shot,  and  shell,  but  also  —  and  may  we  not 
say  pre-eminently  ?  —  in  certain  instructions  from 
the  War  Department  charged  with  the  seeds  of 
liberty.  These  are  the  words  addressed  to  the 
commanding  general :  — 

"  You  will,  however,  in  general  avail  yourself 
of  the  services  of  any  persons,  whether  fugitives 
from  labor  or  not,  who  may  offer  them  to  the 
national  government ;  you  will  employ  such  per 
sons  in  such  services  as  they  may  be  fitted  for, 
either  as  ordinary  employees,  or,  if  special  circum 
stances  seem  to  require  it,  in  any  other  capacity, 
with  such  organization,  in  squads,  companies,  or 
otherwise,  as  you  deem  most  beneficial  to  the  ser 
vice.  This,  however,  not  to  mean  a  general  arm 
ing  of  them  for  military  service.  You  will  assure 
all  loyal  masters  that  Congress  will  provide  just 
compensation  to  them  for  the  loss  of  the  services 
of  the  persons  so  employed." 

These  words  contain  the  germ  of  a  NEW  POLICY, 
for  they  are  understood  to  have  received  the  de 
liberate  sanction  of  the  President,  as  well  as  of  the 
Secretary  of  War.  They  are  confirmed  by  the 
sentiments  more  recently  expressed  in  the  Reports 
of  the  Secretary  of  War  and  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy.  They  mark  an  entire  revolution  in  the 


222  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

policy  of  the  Federal  Government.  Slavery  is  no 
longer  to  be  protected.  It  is  to  take  its  due  place 
among  mundane  interests  —  of  the  baser  sort.  It 
is  to  be  abandoned  to  the  chances  of  the  war  which 
it  has  had  the  temerity  to  kindle.  Having  invoked 
a  shower  of  stones,  it  must  abide,  in  its  own  glass 
house,  the  natural  consequences.  GENERAL  LANE, 
of  Kansas,  had  expressed  the  popular  feeling  when 
he  said  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  government  "  to 
put  down  rebellion,  and  let  slavery  take  care  of 
itself."  The  Administration  has  at  length  acqui 
esced  in  the  popular  decision  ;  and  the  great  expe 
dition  has  launched  the  new  policy  upon  South 
Carolina. 

The  instructions  to  GENERAL  SHERMAN,  though 
lacking  the  positive  form  of  a  proclamation  of 
emancipation,  contain  most  of  the  elements  of  such 
a  paper.  "  First,  martial  law  is  hereby  declared  ; 
for  the  powers  committed  to  the  discretion  of  the 
General  are  derived  from  that  law,  and  not  from 
the  late  Confiscation  Act  of  Congress.  Secondly, 
fugitive  slaves  are  not  to  be  surrendered.  Thirdly, 
all  coming  within  the  camp  are  to  be  treated  as 
freemen.  Fourthly,  they  may  be  employed  in 
such  service  as  they  may  be  fitted  for.  Fifthly, 
in  squads,  companies,  or  otherwise,  with  the  single 
limitation  that  this  is  not  to  mean  '  a  general  arm 
ing  of  them  for  military  service/  And,  sixthly, 
compensation,  through  Congress,  is  promised  to 
loyal  masters,  —  saying  nothing  of  rebel  masters. 
All  this  is  a  little  short  of  a  proclamation  of  email- 


PROVIDENTIAL  DOOM  OF  THE  BARONS.    223 

cipation,  —  not  unlike  that  of  old  CAIUS  MARIUS, 
when  he  landed  on  the  coast  of  Etruria,  and,  ac 
cording  to  PLUTARCH,  proclaimed  liberty  to  the 
slaves." 

The  policy  here  foreshadowed  —  confirmed  as 
it  has  recently  been  by  the  President  in  his  Mes 
sage,  by  the  Reports  of  the  Secretaries  of  the  Wai- 
Department  and  the  Navy,  and  by  the  obvious 
temper  of  the  Congress  now  in  session  —  proclaims 
the  doom  of  slavery  on  the  American  continent. 
Nothing,  we  are  confident,  can  arrest  the  retribu 
tion  which  has  been  preparing  for  so  many  years, 
which  so  many  wrongs  have  tended  to  provoke, 
and  which  is  demanded  alike  by  the  justice  of 
God,  the  development  of  civilization,  and  the  as 
piration  of  every  noble  heart  in  every  clime  of  the 
globe. 

The  development  of  the  slave-holding  despotism 
has  borne  such  fruit  as  no  man  foresaw  who  con 
sented  to  tolerate  its  growth.  The  effects  of  the 
system  have  been  so  palpably  retributive,  as  to 
evince  a  Divine  agency  working  out  its  destruc 
tion,  if  not  the  destruction  of  those  leagued  with 
it.  We  are  too  much  in  the  habit  of  estimating 
the  evils  of  slavery  with  exclusive  reference  to  the 
Negro  race.  Its  direct  and  obvious  effects  upon  the 
slaves  themselves  are  doubtless  revolting  enough ; 
but  the  most  terrific  effects  of  the  system  appear, 
not  in  its  results  to  the  Negro,  but  in  its  results 
to  the  white  man.  Slavery  may  not  bo  an  obvious 


224  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

injury  to  every  individual  slave  ;  but  we  maintain 
that  it  is  an  obvious  injury  to  every  individual 
master,  —  to  every  free  family,  —  to  every  State, — 
and  to  the  very  LIFE  of  the  Republic.  Forty  years 
ago,  actuated  by  commercial  selfishness  and  by 
our  antipathies  to  the  African  race,  we  supposed 
that  the  perpetuity  of  slavery  would  damage  no 
body  but  the  helpless  negro.  But  behold  how  God 
has  punished  our  cruelty,  and  confounded  our 
expectations  !  The  African  race  in  America  has 
passed  through  a  baptism  of  fire ;  but  it  has  mul 
tiplied  as  the  Israelites  did  under  the  oppres 
sions  of  Egypt.  It  has  become  a  more  civilized 
and  mighty  race,  drawing  from  its  taskmasters 
more  mental  vigor  and  greater  relish  for  freedom, 
from  year  to  year,  till  it  has  become  a  terror  in 
the  land,  no  longer  to  be  trusted,  hardly  to  be 
restrained. 

While  God  has  thus  been  strengthening  the  ser 
vile  race,  he  has  been  weakening  their  oppressors. 
While  the  Negro  has  been  rising  toward  civiliza 
tion,  the  white  man  of  the  South  has  been  sinking 
into  barbarism.  Ignorance  and  superstition,  cruel 
ty  and  vice,  violence  and  anarchy,  reign  paramount 
in  the  slave-holding  States.  There  never  was  seen 
such  a  sudden  and  wholesale  relapse  of  great  com 
munities  into  hopeless  barbarism.  The  records  of 
the  social  life  of  those  States  have  been,  for  some 
years,  like  pages  gathered  from  the  annals  of  the 
tenth  century.  Such  violent  despotism  over  pri 
vate  judgment,  —  such  sanguinary  sway  of  Lynch- 


PROVIDENTIAL  DOOM  OF  THE  BARONS.    225 

law,  —  such  subjugation  of  cities  to  brutal  mobs, 
and  of  States  to  revolutionary  anarchy,  —  such 
swaggering  pretensions  to  "  honor "  and  "  chiv 
alry,"  united  with  crimes  that  only  the  hangman 
can  properly  punish,  —  such  spectacles,  which 
make  up  the  every-day  life  of  the  South,  almost 
persuade  a  man  that  he  is  reading  a  chronicle  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  not  an  American  newspaper 
reporting  contemporaneous  events. 

As  little  did  we  foresee  the  effect  of  slavery  on 
the  safety  and  integrity  of  the  American  govern 
ment.  When  it  clamored  for  protection,  we  never 
thought  it  would  aspire  to  rule.  When  it  aspired 
to  rule,  we  never  thought  it  would  conspire  to 
ruin  the  Republic  if  it  were  voted  out  of  power. 
But  such  is  the  nature  of  the  system,  that  it  makes 
everything  it  touches  subservient;  and,  soon  as  it 
comes  to  be  resisted,  breaks  every  treaty,  defies 
every  consequence,  and  malignantly  stabs  the  na 
tion  that  has  warmed  it  into  power.  Itself  based 
upon  injustice,  rapine,  and  cruelty,  it  is  not  con 
ciliated  by  fair  play,  restrained  by  considerations 
of  social  well-being,  or  affected  by  the  prospect  of 
boundless  carnage.  It  is  a  creature  of  lust,  ag 
gression,  and  violence,  and  its  legitimate  influence 
is  always  fatal  just  in  proportion  to  its  power  and 
opportunity. 

With  the  nature  and  tendencies  of  slavery  so 
clearly  disclosed  as  they  now  are  in  the  state  of 
Southern  society,  and  in  this  most  wicked  rebel 
lion,  if  there  is  an  American  freeman  who  can 
10*  o 


226  THE  PROVIDENTIAL  ALTERNATIVE. 

apologize  for  it  any  longer,  it  must  be  a  case  of 
infatuation  utterly  without  parallel.  And  if  this 
bloody  quarrel,  which  slavery  has  ruthlessly  pro 
voked,  is  ever  settled  without  rooting  the  deadly 
curse  out  of  the  land,  we  shall  bequeath  a  new 
quarrel  to  our  children,  and  untold  calamities  to 
mankind. 

We  were  willing  to  tolerate  slavery  from  a  falla 
cious  sense  of  constitutional  obligation  ;  and  we 
would  even  violate  conscience  to  keep  the  faith 
our  .fathers  were  believed  to  have  bound  us  by. 
But  since  slavery  was  not  content  with  being 
tolerated,  but  insisted  on  being  our  dictator, — 
since  she  will  be  our  autocrat  or  our  destroyer ,  — 
and  since  she  has  taken  down  the  sword  and 
summoned  us  to  mortal  combat,  —  away  with  all 
forbearance,  and  all  compromise,  and  let  the 
wicked  harlot  die.  She  has  released  us  from  the 
old  compact,  whatever  that  may  have  involved; 
and  God  be  thanked  for  the  madness  of  despot 
ism,  that  has  broken  the  dangerous  bondT  She 
has  exasperated  every  freeman  by  seventy  years 
of  insolence,  —  by  seventy  years  of  broken  faith 
and  culminating  crimes,  —  and  now,  by  the  just 
God  in  heaven,  and  by  the  holy  instincts  of 
freedom,  let  her  perish  by  the  sword  she  has 
compelled  us  to  draw ! 

We  have  endured  everything  from  slavery  that 
human  nature  can  endure,  because  our  temper  is 
forbearing,  our  manners  are  pacific,  and  our  pur 
suits  compatible  only  with  peace.  We  have  con- 


PROVIDENTIAL  DOOM  OF  THE  BARONS.    227 

sented  to  be  a  reproach  to  civilized  nations, 
because  of  our  complicity  in  this  great  wrong. 
We  have  consented  to  bear  more  than  our  just 
proportion  of  the  burdens  of  government,  and 
have  received  less  than  our  just  share  of  its 
emoluments.  We  have  submitted  to  have  our 
citizens  mobbed,  imprisoned,  and  hung,  for  no 
crime  but  that  of  being  born  in  a  free  State, 
and  loving  their  natural  birthright.  We  have 
endured  insults  and  aggressions,  fraud  and  vio 
lence,  in  the  halls  of  Congress,  and  in  our  own 
free  cities.  We  have  given  up  the  weak  to  the 
fangs  of  the  slave-hunter,  and  seen  the  mark  of 
the  beast  set  upon  the  forehead  of  our  most  il 
lustrious  men.  All  this  has  not  been  enough. 
Slavery  has  demanded  more ;  and  when  we  re 
fused  to  grant  more,  she  seized  her  wicked  blud 
geon,  and  tried  to  demolish  the  fabric  of  that  fair 
Union  which  had  sheltered  her  treasonable  head. 
Now  let  her  have  what  she  has  invoked.  Let  it 
be  war  to  the  death.  Let  the  monstrous  aggres 
sor  find  no  shelter,  henceforth,  under  the  flag 
she  has  profaned  and  betrayed. 

We  compassionate  the  Southern  people,  so  hope 
lessly  involved  in  the  swift-footed  vengeance  that 
must  sweep  their  land.  They  are  not  radically 
more  guilty  than  ourselves  ;  only  the  diabolical 
system  that  has  possessed  them  so  long  has  in 
oculated  many  of  them  with  its  own  malignity. 
We  feel  like  making  great  allowance  for  the  bad 


228  THE   PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

schooling  those  people  have  suffered  from.  So 
deplorably  has  slavery  enervated  their  moral  prin 
ciples  and  darkened  their  sense  of  right,  that 
they  no  longer  realize  either  what  they  do  or 
what  they  are.  They  are  the  saddest  victims  of 
their  own  oppression.  They  'are  like  drunkards 
besotted  by  their  cups,  and  madly  clinging  to 
the  terrible  vice  that  has  ruined  them.  0,  for 
their  sake,  —  even  more  than  for  our  own,  —  let 
us  swear  eternal  hostility  to  the  system  that  has 
perverted  a  noble  people,  and  turned  a  fruitful 
land  into  a  howling  desert !  True,  we  must  bear 
the  sword  against  them,  —  for  their  salvation  and 
ours  we  must  still  appeal  to  the  God  of  battles,  — 
but,  as  Heaven  is  our  witness,  compassion  shall 
temper  the  warfare  they  have  provoked  ;  and  our 
vengeance  fall  only  upon  that  villanous  despot 
ism  which  has  brought  discord  between  us,  and 
upon  those  who  deliriously  espouse  its  fate. 

Nor  need  we  fear  that  a  war  of  emancipation 
and  subjugation  —  (for  this  war  must  involve  the 
subjugation,  if  not  extirpation,  of  the  Southern 
Barons)  —  will  permanently  alienate  the  rebellious 
States  from  the  Union.  Such  apprehensions  are 
refuted  by  the  experience  of  other  nations.  There 
are  few  wounds  inflicted  by  the  sword  upon  the 
transitory  sentiments  of  races,  which  time  does 
not  benignantly  heal ;  and  a  quarrel,  fought  out 
with  lusty  vigor,  often  ends  in  cordial  friendship. 
All  this  has  been  repeatedly  proved,  from  the 


PROVIDENTIAL  DOOM  OF  THE  BARONS.    229 

days  of  the  Roman  empire  downward ;  and  in 
no  country  more  plainly  than  in  Great  Britain, 
where  the  most  virulent  civil  wars  have  left  no 
darker  memento  than  a  few  suits  of  battered 
armor  laid  up  at  Westminster,  or  a  broken  image 
on  some  cathedral  shrine. 

A  weak  and  vacillating  war,  irritating'  without 
subduing  the  South,  and  leaving  the  root  of  its 
antipathy  undisturbed,  would  perpetuate  our  an 
imosities,  and  sow  the  seeds  of  interminable  con 
flicts.  But  a  vigorous  and  resolute  war,  with  a 
regenerating  principle  at  its  base,  with  justice 
on  its  banner,  with  universal  freedom  for  its  aim, 
will  renew  and  conciliate  the  South,  while  it  vin 
dicates  the  integrity  of  the  nation. 

"  The  sword !  —  a  name  of  dread ;  yet  when 
Upon  the  freeman's  thigh  't  is  bound,  — 

While  for  his  altar  and  his  hearth, 

While  for  the  land  that  gave  him  birth, 
The  war-drums  roll,  the  trumpets  sound,  — 

How  sacred  is  it  then ! 
Whenever  for  the  truth  and  right 
It  flashes  in  the  van  of  fight,  — 

Whether  in  some  wild  mountain  pass, 

As  that  where  fell  Leonidas ; 

Or  on  some  sterile  plain  and  stern,  — 

A  Marston  or  a  Bannockburn ; 
Or  'mid  fierce  crags  and  bursting  rills,  — 
The  Switzer's  Alps,  gray  Tyrol's  hills; 

Or,  as  when  sunk  the  Armada's  pride, 

It  gleams  above  the  stormy  tide; 
Still,  still,  whene'er  the  battle's  word 

Is  Liberty,  —  when  men  do  stand 

For  Justice  and  their  native  land,  — 
Then  Heaven  bless  the  sword!  " 


230  THE   PROVIDENTIAL  ALTERNATIVE. 

The  rebel  States  are  like  fields  overgrown  with 
briers,  and  infested  by  beasts  of  prey.  It  re 
quires  the  stern  husbandry  of  war  to  clear  away 
the  excrescences,  to  expel  the  brutal  occupants, 
and  restore  those  lands  to  the  uses  of  civilization. 
There  is  a  wild  crop  of  ignorance,  and  a  depraved 
herd  of  desperadoes,  cumbering  and  infesting  those 
States,  that  require  to  be  turned  under  by  the 
ploughshare  of  battle,  or  driven  out  by  the  besom 
of  judgment.  The  cause  of  civilization  cannot  be 
longer  retarded  by  the  oligarchy  of  Slave  Barons, 
who  have  sinned  so  deeply  against  the  light  of 
the  age,  and  conspired  so  perfidiously  against  the 
glory  of  their  country.  Having  repudiated  the 
better  attributes  of  humanity,  and  impeded  Chris 
tian  development  on  the  continent,  they  have 
forfeited  the  immunities  of  humanity,  and  made 
the  world  their  foe.  They  fall  under  the  Divine 
law  that  exposes  the  nettle  to  the  hoe,  and  the 
wolf  to  the  rifle  ;  for  the  law  of  Providence  is, 
that  noxious  and  ravenous  things  shall  perish 
whenever  the  expansion  of  society  requires  a 
new  field,  and  the  growth  of  noble  men  a  wider 
career. 

Let  the  providential  work  of  renovation  go  for 
ward  in  the  track  of  an  army  conscious  of  its  high 
mission,  arid  dignified  by  the  majesty  of  great 
ideas,  till  violence  shall  no  more  be  heard  in  the 
land,  nor  wasting  nor  destruction  within  its  bor 
ders  ;  till  the  myrtle  shall  supplant  the  brier,  and 


PROVIDENTIAL  DOOM  OF  THE  BARONS.    231 

the  rose  adorn  the  desert ;  and  the  South  will  rise 
up,  clothed  in  her  right  mind,  and  bless  the  Fed 
eral  sword  that  flashed  God's  righteous  judgment 
upon  the  haughty  and  cruel ;  while  gentler  hands 
build  up  the  bulwarks  of  society  anew,  for  a  per 
petual  habitation  of  Honor  and  Freedom,  of  Peace 
and  of  Glory. 


X. 


THESEUS    AND    THE    MINOTAUR.  —  LESSON    OF    THE 
EPOCH. 

THERE  is  a  Greek  story  of  MINOS,  the  magnifi 
cent  king  of  Crete,  who  exacted  of  the  Athenians 
an  annual  tribute  of  seven  youths  and  seven  maid 
ens,  whom  he  sacrificed  to  the  MINOTAUR,  a  hor 
rible  monster  having  the  body  of  a  man,  the  head 
of  a  bull,  and  the  teeth  of  a  lion.  Every  year,  at 
the  approach  of  the  spring  equinox,  came  a  herald 
from  Crete  to  demand  this  tribute ;  and  the  de 
voted  victims  were  borne  away  in  a  black-sailed 
ship,  amid  the  lamentations  of  the  people.  But 
when  THESEUS,  the  young  hero,  came  to  Athens, 
and  saw  the  beautiful  youths  and  maidens  be 
ing  selected  by  lot  for  the  odious  sacrifice,  and 
witnessed  the  shame  of  their  king,  his  father, 
and  the  sorrow  of  the  city,  he  generously  cast 
liis  fate  with  the  destined  victims,  slew  the  Mino 
taur,  and  released  the  land  from  that  dreadful 
scourge. 

The  Greek  legend  finds  an  impressive  applica 
tion  in  republican  America.  The  king  of  the 
South,  whose  name  is  Cotton,  has  levied  tribute 
upon  the  nation  for  many  sorrowful  years.  He 


THESEUS  AND  THE  MINOTAUR.       233 

has  claimed  our  fairest  and  holiest,  —  our  honor, 
our  freedom,  and  our  religion.  In  the  black- 
sailed,  evil-boding  ship  of  compromise  we  have 
sent  them  to  the  tyrant,  and  he  has  cast  them  into 
the  den  of  the  Minotaur,  the  monster  man-beast, 
slavery.  But  God  has  sent  us  deliverance  in  the 
guise  of  calamity.  The  war  is  our  THESEUS,  which, 
girded  by  the  martial  strength  of -the  North,  and 
gloriously  apparelled  in  the  panoply  of  freedom, 
goes  forth  to  slay  the  Minotaur,  and  release  the 
land  forever  from  tyranny  and  trouble. 

Could  this  humble  book  gain  the  ear  of  a  single 
man  sitting  in  the  Capitol,  it  would  say :  — 

No  longer  offend  justice  or  mock  our  woe  by 
affecting  to  wed  the  INCOMPATIBLE. 

Slavery  and  freedom  can  never  be  married  so 
long  as  hell  is  alien  to  heaven.  Their  characters 
and  tendencies,  their  aims  and  desires,  are  com 
pletely  hostile.  Slave  society  rests  upon  robbery, 
—  for  it  holds  by  force  what  it  has  no  claim  to 
hold  in  equity,  —  asserting  that  claim  of  property  in 
man  which  is  repugnant  to  natural  justice ;  free 
society  rests  upon  the  voluntary  industry  of  the 
people,  and  is  guarded  by  equity.  Slave  society 
tyrannizes  over  the  weak ;  free  society  extends 
over  the  weak  the  protection  of  law.  Slave  soci 
ety  makes  brute  force  supreme  ;  free  society  makes 
justice  supreme.  In  slave  society  a  handful  of 
aristocrats  govern  the  State,  and  the  masses  of  the 
inhabitants  are  disregarded  like  cattle ;  in  free 


234  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

society,  political  power  is  distributed  among  all 
the  people,  and  the  most  vigorous  thinker  is  the 
mightiest  man.  In  slave  society,  everything  is  at 
the  mercy  of  an  unthinking  and  capricious  des 
potism,  and  the  tendency  of  the  community  is  ir 
retrievably  downward ;  but  in  free  society  great 
questions  are  settled  by  discussion,  by  reflection, 
by  reason,  —  every  man's  interest  is  safe,  because 
natural  justice  is  revered,  and  everything  is  open 
to  investigation,  and  so  the  community  is  continu 
ally  being  elevated,  and  fortified  by  the  private 
conscience  and  public  intelligence. 

Such  are  the  two  hostile  interests  that  have 
been  subsisting  in  this  Republic,  from  the  begin 
ning.  Our  fathers,  with  many  scruples  and 
doubts,  set  them  up  housekeeping,  in  the  same 
edifice,  because  they  supposed  that  slave  society 
would  soon  die  a  natural  death,  and  they  were 
scarcely  prepared  to  kill  it  by  violent  means. 
For  seventy  years  these  two  types  of  society 
have  been  developing  in  the  nation,  —  each  ac 
cording  to  its  nature,  each  obedient  to  its  own 
instinct.  In  the  exact  ratio  of  their  growth  has 
been  their  aggression  upon  each  other.  When 
the  house  began  to  resound  with  their  strife,  all 
the  peace-makers  turned  out  to  settle  the  quarrel. 
The  more  they  tried  to  settle  it,  the  more  fiercely 
the  quarrel  raged ;  and,  step  by  step,  by  a  series 
of  ineffectual  compromises  that  only  irritated  what 
they  were  expected  to  heal,  we  have  journeyed 
on  to  civil  war. 


LESSON   OF   THE   EPOCH.  235 

Suppose  you  plant  Canada  thistles  on  one  side 
of  your  garden,  and  a  bed  of  strawberry  plants 
on  the  opposite  side,  and  charge  them  not  to 
meddle  with  each  other !  You  will  soon  find  that 
they  will  meddle  with  each  other,  —  not  because 
they  are  wilful,  but  because  each  must  obey  the 
law  of  its  own  nature.  Now  slave  society  and 
free  society  have  their  peculiar  instincts,  and 
each  develops  agreeably  to  its  own  law.  THEY 

MUST  ENCROACH  UPON  EACH  OTHER  ;  THEY  MUST  CON 
FLICT  ;  THEY  MUST  QUARREL  ;  —  and  what  God  and 
Nature  have  thus  made  hostile  we  cannot  join 
together  in  harmony.  Slave  society  imbues  those 
who  grow  up  under  its  spirit  with  a  despotic  and 
lawless  disposition.  Free  society  imbues  people 
with  a  sense  of  justice,  liberalizes  and  elevates 
the  mind,  and  prepares  the  heart  to  feel  the 
liveliest  sympathy  for  the  weak  and  the  oppressed. 
Thus,  the  tendencies  of  the  two  systems,  by  their 
legitimate  operation,  involve  collision  and  strife. 
How  can  we  help  ourselves  ?  Can  the  man  who 
was  nourished  at  the  breast  of  despotism  be  other 
wise  than  tyrannical  ?  Can  the  offspring  of  lib 
erty  disown  his  mother,  or  resist  the  generous 
impulses  that  spring  from  his  blood  ? "  We  must 
all  have  noticed  how  vain  it  is  to  attempt  to 
override  or  suppress  AN  HEREDITARY  TRAIT  ;  and 
these  instincts  that  are  born  with  us,  and  fostered 
by  the  society  in  which  we  are  reared,  CANNOT 

BE     CONTROLLED     BY     ANY     ARBITRARY     EDICT.        We 

may  as  well  make  up  our  minds  to  face  the  fact, 


236  THE   PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

first  as  last:  There  will  be  no  peace  —  at  best, 
only  a  short  truce  —  WHILE  THESE  BELLIGERENTS 
OCCUPY  THE  SAME  HOUSE.  May  we  not  have  a 
public  opinion  in  America  that  shall  recognize 
this  fact  without  longer  delay  ? 

We  have  all  railed,  more  or  less,  at  the  ultra 
men  of  the  South ;  but  we  might  as  well  rail  at 
the  Canada  thistles  when  they  manifest  a  desire  to 
monopolize  the  garden.  They  are  obeying  the  in 
stincts  of  slave  society,  and  our  entreaties  and  ex 
postulations  —  as  the  event  has  repeatedly  proved 
—  might  as  well  have  been  addressed  to  thistles 
as  to  that  class  of  men. 

Suppose  a  company  of  Indian  Thugs  come  into 
the  neighborhood,  buy  a  certain  amount  of  real 
estate,  and  settle  among  us.  It  is  the  profession 
of  the  Thug  to  murder,  and  in  him  the  tendency 
to  murder  has  the  force  of  an  instinct.  Murders 
are  perpetrated,  the  community  is  in  arms,  and 
the  Thugs  are  disposed  of  agreeably  to  law  and 
equity.  But,  however  heinous  the  crime,  it  was 
no  greater  than  was  to  have  been  expected,  in 
view  of  the  habits  of  the  Thugs.  So  with  slave 
society.  All  its  habitudes  and  instincts  are  aggres 
sive  and  destructive.  We  are  not  denying  that 
individual  slave-holders  may  be  very  fair  men. 
Some  natures  are  proof  against  the  worst  social 
influences.  We  speak  of  the  system  of  slavery  in 
its  essence  and  general  effects.  And  we  say  that 
the  most  odious  developments  of  Southern  society 
are  the  legitimate  outgrowths  of  slavery,  —  things 


LESSON  OF  THE  EPOCH.          237 

which  it  is  idle  to  protest  against  so  long  as  we 
foster  the  seed  that  produces  them. 

We  have  complained,  also,  against  the  ultra 
anti-slavery  men.  But,  candidly  and  philosophi 
cally  viewed,  what  have  they  done  but  obey  the 
instincts  of  free  society?  It  was  just  as  natural 
for  free  society  to  develop  the  Abolitionist  party,  as 
it  was  for  your  strawberry  bed  to  throw  out  "  run 
ners  "  toward  the  Canada  thistles.  How  futile  it 
is  to  quarrel  with  any  settled  tendency  of  nature  ! 
How  unwise  it  is  to  ignore  such  facts,  instead  of 
accommodating  ourselves  to  them  !  We  might  as 
reasonably  attempt  to  resist  gravitation,  or  any 
other  natural  law,  as  attempt  to  carry  out  a  peace 
policy  in  violation  of  these  immutable  conditions. 
Free  society  fills  every  bosom  that  is  open  to  its 
influences  with  the  love  of  free  institutions,  — 
with  the  love  of  justice,  mercy,  and  manhood ; 
and  it  inspires  us,  at  the  same  time,  with  an  irre 
pressible  abhorrence  of  the  injustice,  the  profligacy, 
and  the  ignorance  which  are  the  fruits  of  slavery. 
Under  this  influence,  it  is  impossible  that  men 
should  hold  their  peace.  The  full  heart  will  make 
its  emotions  audible  in  burning  words.  Almost 
involuntarily  —  almost  against  a  man's  will  —  he 
thunders  out  his  hatred  of  tyranny,  and  chants 
the  hymns  of  Freedom.  It  is  the  Holy  Spirit  of 
God  that  impels  his  utterance,  and  timidity  and 
compromise  have  no  padlocks  strong  enough  to 
shut  the  mouth  of  a  live  man,  when  the  trumpet 
sounds  and  the  hour  has  come. 


238  THE  PROVIDENTIAL  ALTERNATIVE. 

Consider  how  obvious  it  is,  as  a  general  fact, 
that,  when  a  conflict  takes  place  in  society  between 
the  good  elements  and  the  bad,  there  can  be  no 
permanent  peace  until  the  bad  elements  are  erad 
icated.  A  bad  principle  in  the  social  system  is 
like  a  disease  in  the  human  system,  —  it  is  a 
source  of  irritation  and  unrest  to  the  whole  body 
politic.  The  patient  is  in  ceaseless  pain,  apprehen 
sion,  and  depression  ;  and  even  when  he  affects  to 
rest,  he  moans,  and  tosses  his  limbs  about,  and 
starts  as  from  ghastly  dreams.  How  will  you 
restore  the  man  to  his  natural  tranquillity,  and  to 
the  enjoyment  of  his  existence  ?  Will  you  sit  at 
his  bed,  and  sing  a  lullaby  ?  Will  you  expatiate 
on  the  blessings  of  rest  ?  Will  you  remind  him 
how  commendable  it  is  to  be  quiet  and  serene  ? 
Or  will  you  endeavor  to  expel  the  man's  disease, 

AND   INSURE    HIM    TRANQUILLITY   BY   FIRST    ENDOWING 
HIM   WITH   HEALTH  ? 

That  patient  is  our  country.  If  you  would  not 
mock  the  misery  of  a  man  by  affecting  to  lull  him 
to  rest  while  his  malady  rendered  rest  impossible, 
why  will  you  mock  the  agony  of  our  country,  by 
singing  lullabys,  and  ignoring  the  distemper  that 
brings  all  the  pain  ?  American  society  has  always 
had  in  its  blood  one  virulent  distemper.  That 
distemper  has  been  the  .source  of  all  our  trouble, 
agitation,  discord,  and  danger ;  and  now  it  has 
assumed  an  alarming  phase.  It  has  broken  out 
in  the  ghastly  form  of  TREASON.  Now,  what  does 
the  crisis  require,  at  the  hands  of  reasonable  and 


LESSON  OF  THE  EPOCH.  239 

faithful  men  ?  What  can  it  require,  but  the  RAD 
ICAL  CURE  OF  THE  PATIENT  ?  Purify  the  social 
system,  and  the  American  Republic  will  have  peace. 
This  is  the  inflexible  logic  of  the  hour ;  will  they 
heed  it,  to  whom  God  has  confided  the  solemn 
issues  of  the  contest. 

The  great  lesson  which  this  eventful  epoch  is  to 
teach  our  people,  is  devotion  to  liberty,  and  hatred 
of  every  influence  that  would  qualify  the  principle 
or  abridge  the  blessing.  As  our  spiritual  life  has 
its  fountain  in  Christ,  and  as  the  Church  derives 
all  its  vitality  from  the  Divine  Spirit,  so  our  polit 
ical  life  has  its  spring  in  liberty,  and  the  strength 
of  the  Republic  lives  in  the  spontaneous  enthusi 
asm  of  free  men. 

Liberty,  then,  as  the  inalienable  right  of  every 
man,  of  every  race,  as  the  spring  of  perpetuity  and 
the  crown  of  glory  in  the  State,  should  be  the  song 
and  joy  of  the  nation,  marching  to  battle,  or  ex 
ulting  in  victory.  Through  all  the  ages  to  come, 
it  should  usher  the  citizen  to  the  post  of  duty  in 
peaceful  days,  and  fire  him  with  antique  heroism 
in  the  hour  of  danger.  Mothers,  with  loyal  fin 
gers,  should  sprinkle  their  children  in  its  name. 
Fair  brides  should  be  wedded  to  the  peal  of  its 
auspicious  bells.  Old  men,  while  reviving  the 
pageantry  of  youth,  should  rehearse  its  inspiring 
story.  Statues  should  rise  to  its  honor  in  every 
village.  Banners  should  blazon  its  conquests. 
Literature  should  embalm  its  fame,  in  the  majestic 


240  THE  PROVIDENTIAL   ALTERNATIVE. 

march  of  historical  periods,  and  in  the  splendor 
of  epic  verse.  And  Religion  —  beholding  in  Lib 
erty  her  own  co-worker  —  should  invest  it  with 
spiritual  sanctions,  and  awe  the  hearts  of  men 
before  it  with  all  the  terrors  of  a  righteous 
Providence. 

DECEMBER  25.  1861. 


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